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Among Us

Mild overall intensity

Highest flag: Crime & lawlessness — crime depicted

What's in it

Violence cartoon/stylized

Low

Players are able to kill other players as an Impostor, leaving a corpse; there is no blood or gore.

Crime & lawlessness crime depicted

Low

Impostors sabotage the ship and kill other players, and the game rewards deception and betrayal.

Spending cosmetic purchases

Low

A paid base game on PC and Switch with cosmetic in-game purchases.

Who can reach your kid

Chat with strangersUser-created contentStranger friend requestsReal-money spending

In the news

The real risk with Among Us is not the cartoon gameplay but its open lobby chat, which strangers use as a first-contact point before steering children onto Discord or private messaging where no one is moderating — a pattern that produced at least one 25-year federal sextortion sentence.

Reported harm: isolated reports

Children targeted here

Reported cases of children being approached, exploited or preyed on by people they met through this game.

Fresno man sentenced to 25 years after meeting 15-year-old on Among Us, then coercing explicit images
GV Wire · 2025-11 · Sextortion

Contact began in Among Us's public chat and moved to Discord and FaceTime, where the predator coerced the child into sending sexual images — treat any push to leave the game for a private app as the red flag.

Where it moves next

How contact that starts in this game carries over to Discord, social media and private messaging — where nobody is moderating.

Over 60 fake 'Among Us' apps found spreading malware, adware and banking-credential stealers
International Business Times · 2020-11 · Scams / fraud

Kids chasing free 'mods/hacks/skins' from third-party stores installed malware disguised as the game — only install Among Us from the official App Store or Google Play.

Content controversy

Disputes about what is in the game itself, and the regulator, court and press scrutiny that followed.

'Eris Loris' hack flooded public Among Us lobbies with spam and threats to 'hack your device'
ESET WeLiveSecurity · 2020-10 · Controversial content in the game

An attacker mass-injected threatening and political messages into public matches, showing that strangers can push content at your child in open lobbies — keep young players in private games with people they know.

Every link here was checked to be a real, reachable article before it was published. These are other people's reporting, not ours — we gather it, we don't grade it.

What it is

Among Us is a social deduction game where players take on the roles of Crewmates or Impostors aboard a spaceship. The Crewmates must complete tasks while the Impostors sabotage and eliminate the Crewmates. The game is played in real time with voice and text chat, and players can be randomly matched with strangers. It includes in-app purchases for cosmetic items and a companion app with daily rewards, and a mobile version with in-app purchases.

How it's framed

The game frames its content as lighthearted competitive fun, rewarding deception and betrayal as gameplay mechanics rather than presenting them as moral wrongdoing. It relies heavily on social interaction and player choice, with the tone set by the people playing.

Details

Developer: Innersloth
Publisher: Innersloth
Released: Nov 16, 2018

Metacritic 85critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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