Among Us Beginner Guide — Tips, Tricks, and Strategies

Find out all you need to know to master everyone's favorite social deduction party game, Among Us. Whether you're looking for tips to defeat the Crew from the shadows or need tips on staying alive with an alien parasite running amok, we have everything you need in this handy Among Us guide.

For those unfamiliar with the game, Among Us is a murder mystery in which up to 10 participants frantically work to keep their ship from falling apart. Crewmates must perform a number of tasks and challenges in order to ensure their ship remains in working order. However, there are Impostors among the Crewmates whose goal is to kill the Crewmates by either sabotaging ship components or outright killing innocent players. That means you must know how to play as both Crew and the Impostor, which is why we’ve put together this Among Us guide that will help you become a true master of the game.

The rules of play

The goal of Among Us is to perform all of the chores and safely leave, or to sabotage and murder everyone if you're an impostor. Your to-do list appears in the top left corner and frequently entails completing a series of mini-games. However, keep in mind that any time you spend doing these objectives is time spent not looking behind you.

Among Us is one of those games where natural sleuths and superb liars often triumph. When a body is discovered, the entire lobby is given a few minutes to talk about what they witnessed and who is to blame. If you want to avoid being caught, you'll have to lie convincingly.

General gameplay tips and tricks

Here are some general gameplay tips that every player should read, whether you're a total newbie to Among Us or have dozens of hours of practiced deception under your belt:

1. Learn the names of all the areas on the map. It's always helpful to know where the different zones and tasks are. Among Us is about deduction and deception, and so it’s necessary to have basic knowledge of the playing area. For example, you should know that someone is lying when they accuse another player of jumping into a vent in the Communications room on The Skeld (there is no vent in Communications).
2. Check a game's settings before the match begins. This is important for both Crewmates and Impostors as they will inform how you should move about the map. For instance, if Visual Tasks are enabled, then other players can see your animation when you perform a task. This makes it easy to confirm who is and isn’t an Impostor, since Impostors can only perform common tasks.
3. Start every match by looking at your assigned tasks. This will give you an idea of the general route you need to take during gameplay. If Common Tasks are enabled, then the Swipe Card or Wires tasks (or both, if the setting is on 2) will be enabled. If you've just finished up the Wires task and notice another player pretending to perform it, you'e just spotted an Impostor.
4. Buddy up. Any Among Us player worth their salt knows never to go anywhere without a companion. Whether you’re Crew or Impostor, having someone next to you when accusations start flying ensures you’ve got somebody to vouch for your innocence. If your buddy tries to convince the group that you're an Impostor when you're not, well, you just figured out who the real Impostor is.
5. Pay attention to how long people are standing somewhere. With time and experience, you'll develop an intuition for how long a task should take to complete. A player who seems to take too much (or not enough) time to finish a task should raise alarms in your head.
6. Pay attention to who's walking with whom. There are so many players in a game that it's impossible to keep track of who’s doing what and where. Instead, focus on pairs of players. If you spot Blue and Coral side-by-side and moments later Blue bites the dust, Coral might be to blame.
7. Don't cheat. Not knowing who's Crew and who's Impostor is all of the fun in Among Us. If you're playing with a friend and sharing information directly, you're just straight-up ruining the game for everyone else.
8. Don't be toxic. Success in Among Us depends on your ability to read the room and stay in everyone's good graces. More than a gameplay tip, consider this a life lesson: don't be a dick, and people will want to play with you.