Among Us vs cheaters: persistent account system could be ready in December

Among Us
(Image credit: InnerSloth)

Among Us is a game about putting a token effort into figuring out who's killing your friends and then blowing the wrong person out the airlock. (Sorry, Jorge.) It's light, silly, and a lot of fun, and because it's a videogame, of course there are cheaters. Developer Innersloth said in October that it was working on an account system for the game to help cut back on that sort of behavior, and in an update posted yesterday expressed hope that they'll be ready to go in December.

"This will allow players to report accounts that are toxic and/or hacking," the studio said. "They may be a bit barebones at first but things like friendslists will also come at a later date after launch."

The studio said it's not rushing into any new efforts to combat cheating because that's what it did last time, and it didn't go exactly as planned. 

"It was pretty bad there for a bit, so Forte pushed out server changes really fast. They seemed to help a lot, but some cheats still work and now there are bugs too," it explained. "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. 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 major updates in the works include more translations and localizations, improved colorblind support, and the big one, a new map with new tasks to complete while you're waiting around to be murdered. There are other ideas being planned out that are farther off, but the studio said there's no "official roadmap" for any of it: "We play things pretty loose so we can tackle what we think the game needs most. We also don’t want to promise anything and then not provide it so it’s a scary thing to share."

As for what's included in the latest update, here's the full rundown:

  • Added Anonymous Voting option (All votes appear as grey)
  • Added Task Bar Modes (Always mode works like normal, meeting mode only updates the bar during meetings, invisible mode removes the task bar entirely)
  • MIRA: Comms sabotage clears the security logs
  • Added symbols to fix wires task
  • Added cosmetics to meeting screen
  • Various bug fixes
Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.