Finding The Impostor is one of the main goals of the Crewmates in Among Us and something that Impostors want to prevent Crewmates from doing.
Overview[]
In Among Us, it is possible for Crewmates to seek and vote out The Impostors. However, this requires a great deal of trust and certainty. Impostors will probably try to frame other Crewmates, and Crewmates may wrongly suspect someone of being An Impostor.
Discovering An Impostor[]
There are a few ways that An Impostor can be found with 100% certainty:
- A Crewmate sees An Impostor kill, either in person or on the Security cameras.
- An Impostor attempts to fake a visual task (provided that visual tasks are on).
- A Crewmate sees An Impostor fake a task, such that the task bar does not go up or such that The Impostor fails to follow a certain order in doing said task.
- Note that the task bar will only go up if the task is fully completed. For example, in the Divert Power task, diverting the power in Electrical/Reactor will not make the taskbar go up. However, accepting the power in another location, such as Shields on The Skeld will make the taskbar go up.
- An example of the task order is the Download Data task, wherein The Skeld, Admin is always the last location needed to complete the task. If a player appears to upload data in Admin first, they are An Impostor. The same rule applies to Communications on Polus and Outside on The Airship.
- Another example is the Water Plants task on MIRA HQ. If a player appears to water the plants before they got the watering can out of Storage, they are An Impostor.
- Yet another example is the Divert Power task on The Skeld. If a player appears to divert the power in a location such as Navigation without diverting power from Electrical, they are An Impostor. The same rule applies at Reactor on MIRA HQ and Electrical on The Airship.
- A similar example is the fake Divert Power panels in Reactor on The Skeld and Office on Polus, and the fake Fix Wiring panels on The Airship. If a player appears to attempt those tasks on those panels, they are likely An Impostor since there is no actual task there.
- You can identify The Impostor if they do a common task that you don't have, such as Fix Wiring, although this is a very risky technique.
- A Crewmate sees a Shapeshifter use Shift; you can tell who they are as, whenever they shift/unshift, the cocoon during the animation always uses their original color.
- Similarly, if you see two Crewmates of the same color or another Crewmate that shares your color next to a dead body, there is a high chance that either one is a Shapeshifter who just killed in front of them (or you). In either case, do not report the body immediately. Chase after the clone and force them to run out of time and change back to their original form, then run to the emergency button or the dead body to net an easy win.
- Someone is killed on the same frame an emergency meeting occurs, and then their dead body appears under The Impostor's feet after the emergency meeting.
- Someone re-enters a vent they have just used without the necessary cooldown.
- Someone is 'doing a task' where there is no task, such as The Skeld's fake Accept Diverted Power panel.
- Someone reports a dead body or presses the emergency button without being near it. This indicates that they are a Shapeshifter who did one of these things while shifted.
Suspicious Activities[]
Performing suspicious activities does not mean that someone is An Impostor, but they can be a good indication of who should be watched more closely. Crewmates should not do these activities since this will lead to an innocent ejection. Some suspicious activities are listed below:
- Wandering around aimlessly and not appearing to do any tasks.
- Going to a location without purpose, especially far away locations, such as Launchpad.
- Walking away from a dead body.
- Appearing to teleport around the map, such as appearing in different places on camera nonsensically, or going straight from entering MedBay to leaving Electrical in seconds on The Skeld. This is a sign that the player used a vent.
- In a similar fashion to this, if a player goes from one side of Gap Room on The Airship to the other without using the moving platform or taking the longer route, they most likely used a vent or, most likely, nobody saw them travel there. Similarly, this idea can be applied if a player moves from one side of Ventilation to the other faster than what would be normal.
- Not fixing a Sabotage or wandering around where the Sabotage is fixed.
- Pausing right before a Sabotage occurs, including Door Sabotage.
- Accusing players who turn out to be Crewmates when ejected.
- Accusing many players.
- Accusing a dead body.
- Accusing a Crewmate that has completed a visual task.
- Talking a lot or not at all in emergency meetings.
- Watching a player use Security moments before Comms Sabotaged happens.
- Faking doing a common task that is not registered to any other player—likewise, running past a common task when assigned.
- Only completing short tasks when multiple Crewmates nearby are doing tasks, then leaving the same time in a task when another Crewmate finishes.
- Not doing a long task for the right amount of time.
- Standing in an area where there are no tasks — for instance, standing at Seismic Stabilizers on Polus while there isn't a Sabotage.
- Calling an emergency meeting without a good reason.
- Reporting a body and then not saying the location it was found in.
- Getting caught lying, such as saying they voted someone who then gets no votes or that they were in a room when someone using Admin saw nobody was in.
- This includes claiming to be in a location not present on the map, such as saying that they were in Vault on The Skeld.
- Going into a room with another Crewmate and being the only one to come back out.
- Standing near a dead body but not reporting it.
- Being the last person to enter a stack of Crewmates that someone then dies in.
- Not answering questions they are directly asked.
- Having much less knowledge of the game than their level would imply. For example, a level 15 player on The Skeld claiming to not know the names of rooms to get around saying where the dead body they report is.
- Behaving very differently compared to previous games in the same lobby.
Exceptions[]
If a player is seen doing something suspicious, these reasons should be considered before accusing:
- If a Crewmate finishes all their tasks, they might wander around looking for suspicious behavior or dead bodies.
- Someone may not see a dead body if it is behind an object, such as a rock on Polus, or if it is a similar color to the ground.
- Someone may distance themselves from the body to look for another body to know if it was a double kill.
- Some players might purposely pretend to be suspicious and get themselves ejected for no reason.
- Color-blind people may have a hard time telling two people apart. For example, if a Crewmate is falsely accused and then ejected, it is possible the accuser was color-blind and could not tell. This is, of course, not always the case.
- Characters wearing skins may be confused for a different color if seen at a glance.
- Some Crewmates are new to the game and might be unfamiliar with where the tasks are located.
- A player may not understand or speak the language most players are using in emergency meetings, or their knowledge of the language may be limited (for example, they can understand and say colors but not rooms or abilities).
- Some people, especially more experienced players, may confuse innocent mistakes with a sign of being An Impostor and get them revealed as a Crewmate as they are ejected.
- Some people consider it safer to do their tasks during a critical Sabotage, especially if there are many Crewmates since they can predict where everyone will be and are likely to be alone in the room.
- Some people may not fix a critical Sabotage as they are too far from the Sabotage and may not have enough time to fix it.
- Someone may not report a body immediately but instead use an ability nearby (such as Doorlog) to see if they could catch An Impostor.
- Characters that have the same cosmetics as one another and/or have the same name, either by coincidence or one deliberately impersonating the other, can be confused when seen for a split-second.
- Some people perform suspicious activities out of fear for their character's safety. For example, they may close a task without finishing it to get away from an approaching player or call an emergency meeting to get updates on what people know if there has not been an emergency meeting for a very long time.
- Someone may not go to a room alone or with only one player as the player may be killed there.
- PC users may need to look down at their keyboard while typing. As a result, they may say something in an emergency meeting that contradicts something else recently said because they did not see the message.
- Some people are so focused on their tasks that they do not notice or quickly forget things, such as a character walking past them, and cannot recall it at an emergency meeting.
- Similarly, people may incorrectly state things due to a foggy memory.
- Guests and users under the age of digital consent are restricted to Quick Chat, which makes it very hard to give an open-ended response to a question. If this seems to be the case, look at the Quick Chat wheel to see what Quick Chat users can respond with so they can answer the question with ease.
- A player may be distracted by things in real life, such as another person talking to them as they play. This will lower their concentration level and they may not notice important things in the game.
Ruling out An Impostor[]
If a player performs a visual task when enabled, other players can be sure they aren't An Impostor. There are some ways players can trust another player; although these are not sure-fire, they show a good sign:
- Seeing the task bar go up when a player finishes a task. If there were no other Crewmates around, then when this happens, the chance of An Impostor succeeding in getting the timing right is quite a low probability. This could only be seen if the "Task Bar Update" is set to "Always" in options.
- Giving information that confirms other Crewmates.
- Giving information that leads to the ejection of An Impostor
- Having been with someone else the entire time and not killing them, especially if there is only one Impostor left and/or the other player is a confirmed Crewmate.
- Staying on a monitoring ability for almost the whole round, especially late into the game when the player could've finished their tasks.
- Being with someone else when a murder occurred. This is most certain in games with only one Impostor, as the actual Impostor would have had to be at the murder scene. Otherwise, while the other player may be An Impostor, they are at least innocent of that particular murder.