The Nine Personality Types Of ''Among Us'' Players
Among Us, a spin on the mafia/werewolf genre by indie company Innersloth, has hit the sweet spot for many top streamers on Twitch. Pitting these personalities against or in a team with each other has made for great entertainment and word of mouth advertising. Throughout any group of people we’ve watched and played with, some roles that players take on never change, though they exist in a Venn diagram of traits. Which types of roles do you play in your group of friends when playing Among Us?
The village leader
Without fail, there will be one player in the group taking charge of investigations, and leading the discussion like they’re a town hall meeting. The village leader will meticulously question everyone alive for what they did and - most annoyingly - will remember ALL of it. They will say things like “well, that’s a little sus but not enough to vote on just yet”, “let us not make rash decisions”, or “who has a task we can observe them do?”, in an obnoxiously confident way which usually doesn’t give their own allegiances away. The village leader spams the emergency button for two reasons:
- To make sure that everyone is okay...ugh…
- To hear themselves talk a little more
As an imposter, you love to kill this guy just to get rid of them as a coordinator of the group - and an obnoxiously calm voice. They’re hard to kill though, as they always play conservatively and hang around people by organising group stacks.
There’s a solid chance that they have an Instagram account about neurolinguistical programming and how to ethically use it in sales.
The FBI Agent
Know the player that usually doesn’t say much until they have the irrefutable proof that someone is an imposter? That’s the FBI agent - always hanging on cameras and monitoring the situation. The FBI agent is a massive tryhard, analysing patterns of behaviour in an almost creepy way, having post-it notes all over their monitor to make sure they don’t miss anything. Leaving the FBI agent alive for more than two nights likely means that you will lose the round as an imposter through sophisticated reasoning and mapping of everyone’s movement. Nobody actually understands why the FBI agent is certain but they’ve built up a reputation of always being right, so we might as well vote for who he says is guilty.
When the FBI agent isn’t playing Among Us, they are checking if season 16 of Criminal Minds has been announced. You’re not Reid, mate.
The "I don't know what's going on" Guy
Every group has at least one person who just has no idea what’s going on, likely due to reading their Twitch chat, or watching Gordon Ramsay on their second monitor while playing. Perhaps the person is also just new to the game and is painstakingly slow to get it.
The “I don’t know what’s going on” Guy will never do tasks as Ghost. They will mindlessly walk over corpses without reporting them, making more on-the-ball players report them and kill a crucial crew member in the process. The “I don’t know what’s going on” Guy is a horrible liar and somehow an even worse truth-teller, always seeming suspect because nothing that they say makes any sense. They will take no less than 16 tries to swipe the Credit Card.
As imposter, they will accidentally misclick the vent button instead of going for the kill, and will run into several walls during the chase to the emergency button on the crewmember that saw them completely drop the spaghetti. Just the absolute worst Imposter teammate you could have, spamming Reactor sabotages on cooldown.
The Taskmaster
Chop, chop, these tasks aren’t doing themselves! There’s always one guy who loves to push everyone to get their tasks done as early as possible, will always have a pixel-perfect idea of where the bar currently is, and gets upset during meetings when the bar hasn’t filled up to their liking. Even in death you aren’t safe from the taskmaster, as they demand the Ghosts to do their tasks ASAP. In turn, taskmasters pride themselves on having mapped out routes for their tasks to do them in speedrun time. Even as an Imposter, the taskmaster will request everyone to hurry up - they just hate slackers so much.
The Taskmaster loathes the FBI Agent as they want to win in very different ways. While the Taskmaster wants to put a heavy time clock on the Imposters, the FBI agent wants to win by deduction, which takes precious time away from connecting wires.
The truth-teller
Raised by nurturing parents, the truth-teller simply can’t lie. You caught the truth-teller running away from a room that someone was killed in and want to question what they did? “Yeah, I’m sorry it was me, not even going to pretend it wasn’t.” When they get killed, they will feel a sense of relief because at least now nobody will suspect them anymore.
The truth-teller can’t live with being seen as anything but innocent, running circles around you to get you to follow them to Med Bay so they can prove themselves to you. Their Steam avatar is a character from a slice of life anime.
The Obnoxious Accuser
“I think it’s X because they did that wiggly movement thing,” says the obnoxious accuser, “I can hear it in your voice that you’re lying.” Without fail, there’s one guy who always stirs the pot with the most outrageous claims about being able to read people like open books, while their prediction rate sits just below coin-flip.
The obnoxious accuser will always talk over the village leader to get their point across with vastly more emotional investment, and the worst thing about it is that it gets people on board. When this group of people turns quiet, they’re most likely the Imposter and will inevitably be caught killing someone as another crewmember rounds the corner. They are in an infinite loop of tilt from either immediately being caught as an Imposter, or not being listened to as Crewmember. Peripherals have to fear for their life.
The Always Imposter
There’s no greater pleasure than slaying people and getting away with it in Among Us, and for some reason, deeply hidden in the code of the universe, the Always Imposter will… you guessed it… always be the Imposter. Okay, maybe only half the time.
The Always Imposter preys upon the feeling of “I’m about to die” and jumps out of the vent as that feeling hits the front of your conscious thought. As the real-life incarnation of Freddy Krueger, they don’t care for Crewmember rounds, are the absolute worst to work with, and will drive FBI Agents and village leaders insane. “What tasks were you doing and where were you coming from?” *Crisps crunch sounds*
If you happen to have two of these specimens in one lobby, four of you will be dead by the time the first-night rolls around, smashing the kill button on cooldown.
Always Imposters are actually really chill guys in real-life, interested in succulents, their marriage, and their cat, living out the worst part of their being within video games, with no virtual puppy safe from their sledgehammer.
The Goldfish
Village leader: “What kind of tasks did you do tonight?”
Goldfish: “I...I forgot… I’m sorry.”
Village leader: “Just give me one task, or like the route that you ran.”
Goldfish: *silence*
Absolutely never kill the goldfish as an Imposter. Ironclad conclusions like “if it isn’t me then it must be Y, so vote me first and get Y in the next meeting” will absolutely be forgotten by the time the next voting rolls around. The Goldfish has managed to solve the five reactor sequences like once.
The Goldfish gets pen and paper when two-factor authentication requires them to remember a four-digit code. It’s not their fault - seven and a half hours of average social media usage has destroyed their attention span.
The Meta Gamer
The meta gamer is the direct opposite of the obnoxious accuser. Being able to run every role in emulation, they will adapt to the nature of the group. Playing with a lot of new players or “I don’t know what’s going on” guys? The meta gamer won’t use sabotages as an Imposter as to shift the blame onto the other group.
There’s no village leader? No worries, the meta gamer will fill those shoes. Acutely aware of their own play patterns, they will switch it up frequently, lying well and badly during Crewmember rounds to not establish a recognisable characteristics.
In another life, the meta gamer could’ve been an award-winning actor but they’re busy creating A.I. that passes the Turing test. That or they are Keanu Reeves.
Image courtesy of Innersloth