Among Us' developers reportedly axe plans for sequel as game surges is popularity

The demand for gaming amid the pandemic is at an all-time high right now. In fact, many retailers have reported dwindling inventories of consoles such as the Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Xbox One. Even PC gamers can no longer find stocks of Nvidia's latest GPUs except from resellers at exorbitant prices. Meanwhile, what made the headlines in the past few months are two games that topped the charts: "Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout" and "Among Us."

Despite the simple gameplay mechanics brought about by the latter, it managed to captivate the gaming community. Now, almost every notable streamer has featured it on several occasions. For those who are wondering, "Among Us" is classified as a murder mystery title with elements of a survival /party game. It was released on June 18, 2018, but it is only now that its popularity has surged beyond expectations.

The game studio that developed and published "Among Us" announced last week that a planned sequel has been put on hold for the meantime. Instead, they want to pool their resources and address some issues with the current build of the game, which, as of Friday last week, recorded over 3.5 million concurrent users.

"We canceled the sequel because we saw the opportunity to give back to the players a little bit faster than creating a new, better version," said InnerSloth developer Forest Willard. "It will be more work in the long run, but we're excited for players to update the game, and suddenly there's a brand new feature or map that unlocks new experiences."

According to CNN, "Among Us" is described as a social deduction type of title.

Players start the game either as a crewmember or imposter, wherein the goal of the former is to complete tasks. The latter, on the other hand, is tasked with sabotaging the mission and killing the others without getting spotted. During its release, it failed to capture audiences globally but managed to gain traction in South Korea and Brazil. However, after it was featured by a prominent streamer on Twitch with a 2.8 million fanbase, that's when it turned into a smash indie hit. "Among Us" is free-to-play on mobile devices and costs $5 on PC.