Among Us: ADVANCED Tips, Tricks, & Strategies to Winning Everytime
In games like Among Us that hinge on social deduction, deception and teamwork are the most important tools players can use to win every time. Like other social deduction party games like Mafia and Werewolf, Among Us splits players into two teams, crewmates and Impostors. The crewmates will need to stay alive, complete tasks, and vote to eject suspected Impostors from the game. The Impostors meanwhile need to stay above suspicion while sabotaging and killing crewmates until their numbers are equal. Winning the game often comes down to who can be the best at deceiving the other players, or who is best at spotting that deception.
Particularly talented strategists will recognize that it is more beneficial for crewmates to eject a suspected Impostor because, even if they are wrong, they only lose a fraction of their team, while the Impostors will lose around 50%. Additionally, it is always easier to try and prove innocence rather than guilt, and the best Among Us players will focus on the facts and on clearing players as innocent rather than tossing around speculations of player guilt. Though there are many variables that will determine the outcome of any single match, players can improve their skills or adopt new strategies and win more consistently. For those players looking to get better at Among Us and take their strategy and deduction to the next level, here are some tips and tricks to improve the chances of winning.
Impostors need to be able to stay above suspicion to improve their chances of winning the game. As there are always going to be fewer Impostors than there are crewmates, it is in the Impostor's best interest to avoid earning the suspicion of other players.
The fastest way to appear suspicious is to be caught by a crewmate after making a kill. They are likely to report the body, calling a meeting of all crewmates, and will likely accuse the Impostor of being an Impostor. The knee-jerk response that player is most likely to have is counter-accusing their accuser to cast doubts on their story. This may look like it works, and it might even get the accuser booted out of the airlock. However, it will paint a clear target on the Impostor's back, as it will be clear to all other crewmates that one player was lying. Even with Confirm Ejects turned off, the crewmates will likely just eject both accusers to be safe.
The better strategy is for the Impostor to spin a story about why they were caught near the body. Good alibis might be that they were coming to investigate the crime scene, or that they were heading toward a particular task. Impostors will need to think quickly and be able to lie effectively under pressure for this to work. The Impostor will also need to be careful not to lay it on too thick, because the more vigorously someone defends themselves, the guiltier they begin to appear.
If a player is rambling a lot, this can be a good way for the Impostor to shift blame onto that crewmate. Rambling looks suspicious, as does talking too much. New players tend to talk a lot in a bid to express their innocence, and the Impostor can take advantage of this and use it to accuse and cast doubt on that player.
The other way Impostors can clear themselves of wrongdoing is to have someone vouch for them. One way this could work is by making a kill in a secluded area, venting away, and finding areas with a lot of crewmates who can see the Impostor player performing fake tasks and vouch for their innocence once the body is discovered. Another way might be to kill in a crowded area where the confusion will likely help shield the Impostor from suspicion. Finally, the Impostors can and should team up if there are several of them and vouch for one another. Of course, if they do this too often, it could backfire, but it is a good way to begin the game and get a few kills without being caught.
If Impostors want to make it easier to make kills undetected, they may want to use sabotage. While cutting the lights are a popular choice, given it limits crewmates' vision and can make it easy for the Impostor to avoid suspicion, it is a fairly obvious move and won't necessarily change crewmates' courses or force them into different locations for easy kills. Impostors should not ignore the lights, but they should also consider other sabotages that force crewmates to leave their tasks and go fix the problem. This can give the Impostor access to secluded crewmates while others leave their posts and can make it easier to avoid detection.
Crewmates do have the advantage in Among Us, but it can be incredibly difficult for them to win. There are three reasoning tools crewmates can use to win more often, if not every time. Those are Deduction, Abduction, and Induction.
Deduction is the Sherlock Holmes kind of logical reasoning, and crewmates can use this at the start of the game to begin narrowing down suspects. Often after the first kill, there will be around 2 to 4 potential suspects, all with their own alibi. This is the point where many Impostors will say they were with someone else, typically the other Impostor but not always, to get cleared of wrongdoing. The astute crewmate will pay attention to these alibis and keep track of who was with whom and who has seen what. An example might be a group of players waiting to perform a Medbay scan. If Red saw Yellow scan, Yellow saw Cyan scan, and Cyan saw Red scan, Yellow can reasonably assume Red is innocent and vouch for that innocence.
Abduction is a principle of logical reasoning that combines unconfirmable and confirmed information to get to an answer. This is a strong way to determine who the Impostor is, but it can also be flawed if the Impostor is especially good at framing. Abduction happens when two players are found near a dead body and are accusing one another of being the Impostor. If Red dies and Yellow and Cyan are nearby, the crewmates will reasonably assume one of them is responsible. If Yellow is then killed the next round, crewmates are likely to assume Cyan is responsible, even though an Impostor might be framing Cyan. Crewmates may use this reasoning because they perceive the benefit of possibly kicking out the Impostor outweighs the cost of inadvertently booting an innocent crewmate.
Induction is a type of logical reasoning wherein the crewmate will note a pattern of suspicious behavior or safe behavior from another player. Mentally, they are likely to assign points for suspicious versus safe behavior patterns and make judgements based on the more consistent pattern. This is often a longer waiting game where the crewmate observes for a few rounds, and particularly intense players may even keep notes to help them keep track. This kind of reasoning is a bit weaker than the other two, as players can fall prey to confirmation bias if they are looking too hard for suspicious behavior from another. Still, if Red notices that Cyan is performing a task and the taskbar moves, and can't seem to find where Yellow has gone, it is usually safe to assume Cyan is innocent and Yellow might be the Impostor.
It's also a good idea for Crewmates to recognize and quantify what constitutes suspicious behavior as objectively as possible. For example, If two players counter-accuse one another, it is very likely one is the Impostor, and it is safer to eject both even if it means losing an innocent crewmate. Players who ask a lot of questions that don't seem relevant and just add more information to the discussion and waste time are suspicious and should be questioned, followed, or otherwise monitored. Players who talk a lot are also somewhat suspicious, especially if it seems they are trying to spin a tale.
Crewmates should be sure to pay attention to what other players say about where they were and what they were doing. Here, Occam's Razor will often apply, and the most simplistic and plausible answer will be the correct one. For example, if the pathing a player describes taking seems off or counter-intuitive, then it probably is, and that player is a strong candidate for Impostor.
Among Us is available for PC, iOS, and Android devices.