Purple being toxic? Red using hacks? Among Us developer InnerSloth says players will have new tools for punishing these impure souls come December when the game gets a new account system.
“[Accounts] will allow players to report accounts that are toxic and/or hacking,” the developer wrote in its latest unofficial roadmap on Monday. “They may be a bit barebones at first but things like friendslists will also come at a later date after launch.”
Among Us, a party game about lies, murder, and mob rule aboard space stations, has had a ton of issues with cheating since it exploded in popularity thanks in part to streaming on Twitch by big names that include US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Some of the hacks are pranks like advertising YouTube channels or Trump’s re-election campaign. Others let people communicate secretly with one another or provide god-like powers to kill rivals on command.
In the past, InnerSloth has tried to tackle these issues with big server-side updates, but those fixes have also introduced new bugs. Going forward, the studio plans to take a more cautious approach. “There will be more server updates to fix all of this, but rushing anti-hacks is what caused the bugs, so cleaning things up is a slower process,” the studio wrote. “Also rest assured that any threats made in the game are false and your devices and data are safe. If you see a hacker, ban them or find a different room.”
Other changes to the game are also currently in the works. This week’s patch rolled out a new colorblind mode to make the game more accessible; for example, the wire-matching mini-game now includes symbols in addition to colors. InnerSloth is also working to translate the game into more languages and launch a brand new map with a new layout and space station tasks for players to master. It will apparently be inspired by Henry Stickmin, a Newgrounds animation series that began in the late 2000s.