Among Us – The Complete Guide to Impostor

I found this guide on Reddit when I purchased Among Us, and while it wasn’t flawless, it really helped me get ahead when I first started playing. I’ve made quite a few tweaks to the original guide, written exclusively for single Impostor games on Skeld.

Since the Gaming Community I play with also plays Skeld almost exclusively, I don’t have much to say about the other two maps, but most of this guide will still be relevant no matter what map you decide to play on.

 

Section 1: General Tips

This section covers strategies that are almost always applicable. You probably already know most of these if you have a few games under your belt.

Don’t vent when you don’t need to.

You are taking a risk at both ends of the pipe. If anyone is watching either door, you can give yourself away by disappearing or appearing where you should NOT be. Mostly, use the vents after securing a kill to get away.

There are some great tricks for securing kills using vents, and we’ll cover a few later on, but in general, it’s safer not to overuse vents.

I’ve known a few players who hang out in vents often but being unaccounted for at the wrong time is nearly as dangerous as being spotted in the wrong place.

NOTE: If you play on MIRA HQ, the vents become an essential tool. This is due to the small map size and the fact that the vents are all interconnected. The vents here are often your only way of moving around without being noticed.

Don’t Kill and Immediately Self-Report.

Reporting too many bodies makes you look incredibly suspicious, and people are going to ask questions. If you kill, then happen to run into the body again 30 seconds later, it’s ok to self-report, but you should avoid returning to the crime scene without an alibi.

Fake your tasks.

You should probably pretend to do some tasks. The list is there to help you, but keep in mind that you can give yourself away by faking the wrong task. The first half of any multistage task is usually safe to fake because the progress bar doesn’t move until you complete the second stage.

When playing with veterans, faking the second stages of these tasks can get you voted out quickly.

When faking tasks that progress the green bar, try to wait until the bar moves to walk away. This isn’t perfect, but it helps mask your deception. If you start faking and the bar doesn’t move, consider sabotaging comms to give yourself a little wiggle room.

Again, a keen eye might catch you out on these, so try not to fake anything that moves the bar unless you feel that it’s worth the risk.

Admin swipe card is one of the worst of these. Don’t bother trying.

Don’t kill while the cams are flashing red.

If the red light is on, then a crewmate is watching the camera. The monitor is located in the security room, across from the reactor. The cameras are positioned in the 4-way intersection between security and reactor, just outside the Medbay, in the hallway near Oxygen, and just outside Admin.

Don’t overuse the vents in Admin, Cafeteria, or the Oxygen hallway.

The cafeteria is out in the open, the admin is in a high traffic area, and the Oxygen hallway is on cams. You can’t see the camera from the vent by Oxygen, so you are very likely to be spotted, especially early game when there are more warm bodies roaming around.

Shut doors before going for the kill, and vent out!

Shutting the doors allows you to secure your kill without anyone walking in on you. Once you vent out, it will be tough to tie you to the corpse unless someone else witnessed you walking into the room.

Sabotage a lot (more details in section 2.)

Sabotage is your primary tool for controlling the movement of crewmates on the map. You can shut down the reactor to keep crewmates from finding your kill in navigation. You can shut down Oxygen to force the crewmates to split up. You can lock doors on crewmates to single them out or create suspicious circumstances that might frame an innocent party.

You can shut downlights to make your life easier in general. Seriously, if you don’t know what to sabotage, lights are almost always a good option. You can also work against your crewmates by flicking all the switches back to off while they try to fix the lights.

Fixing your own sabotage is a great way to avert suspicion from yourself. This usually works for me, even though I play with a group of people who all use this trick.

ALWAYS sabotage to prevent the emergency button from being pressed during the late game.

Remember. The Impostors win automatically if the crewmates no longer have enough votes to remove any Impostors. This means the crewmates MUST remove enough Impostors to retain the majority. If the number of surviving Impostors is ever equal to the number of surviving Innocents, then it’s game over for the good guys.

Consequently, the crewmates will become very anxious to start a vote when they only outnumber the Impostors by 1 or 2. This is likely their last chance to vote out an Impostor and avoids a loss. Because meetings cannot be held during a crisis/sabotage, you will want to initiate one before the emergency button’s cooldown runs out.

By doing so, you can wait out your kill cooldown and secure the final kill(s) you need. If you have a teammate, you may need to perform a quick double kill to avoid a report being made, so pay attention to your ally and try to place yourself to secure the kill on whichever crewmate he doesn’t seem to be targeting.

(quick note: Nubbins02’s original guide included a section here detailing the usefulness of sabotaging lights during this point in the game. It can certainly work, but it is actually more useful when teamed up with another Impostor.)

As mentioned, you have the ability to counteract crewmates as they attempt to re-engage the lights. Keep the lighting panel open and repeatedly flip switches off to extend the crisis indefinitely. Your crewmates might even give up or, better still, walk away. This buys you, or better still an ally, additional time to secure kill(s).

Memorize the vents!

You can use this Skeld Map Guide to help you learn the layout of the vents and tasks. You will pick these up over time either way, but this might help in the meanwhile.

Don’t kill in a room that an Innocent has seen you enter.

For example, let’s say that Lime sees you enter electrical while he makes his way into storage to refuel. His task takes him back to Engines, and he walks past electrical again. This time though, he finds the doors are shut. Soon after, when they open, he walks in and finds poor Purple dead. Lime is very likely to suspect that you killed purple before venting out. After all, you wouldn’t have had much time to complete your task in electrical before the doors locked you in.

Sabotage after killing.

Whenever you perform sabotage, many Innocents will be forced to deal with the crisis. By creating a crisis far away from the body, you give yourself the highest chances of escaping the crime scene and meeting up with the group as they converge, which helps secure your alibi.

Don’t underestimate your crewmates.

Even the sleepiest, least engaged crewmate will occasionally make a brilliant deduction.

NEVER GIVE UP!

Let’s say that it’s the final five, you are the only Impostor, and you kill Brown. Lime sees you vent and spots the body immediately after. Instead of saying “welp, gg,” try to come out swinging! Lob the accusation at Lime before he has the chance! Accuse him of exactly what he saw you do, and you will rob his story of a lot of its persuasive force.

If all else fails, especially if you can afford to lose an Impostor, you can tell them, “If I’m wrong, vote me out next!”. Fight, claw, and scratch for every kill, and you’ll win a lot more than you might think.

Section 2: Who, Where, When, and Why to Kill

This section covers strategies for killing crewmates efficiently while attracting minimal suspicion in the process. These tips are more specialized than those in the previous Section.

Use Admin to pick crewmates off.

Although the Admin map might seem useless as a crewmate, it is an invaluable tool as an Impostor.

Look for solo crewmates, and aim for kills near useful vents. Avoid dangerous vents like Admin, Cafeteria, and Oxygen.

Don’t forget your kill cooldown! It doesn’t tick down while you stare at the monitor!

Get Creative!

You can shut down cameras by sabotaging comms. You can also vent from Medbay into Security, lock the doors, and kill whoever is on the cameras.

Security / Electrical Camping

This doesn’t work well during the middle or end game, but you can score easy kills by staying in electrical and security during the early game. Once you jam the doors and vent out, wait a few seconds and if nobody reports the body, go ahead and sabotage Oxygen to prevent anyone from finding the body.

Don’t kill in Storage, Cafeteria, Admin, or Hallways.

Once you get to the end game, you often won’t choose, but early to mid-game, you should avoid these risky areas. These are all either too open or too high traffic. Bodies in these places get found.

Don’t kill everyone you see.

Be patient. Don’t kill crewmates who are suspects. Suspected crewmates should be your lowest priority targets. Find an innocent of sticking with who can give you an alibi while your teammate does some of the dirty work.

DONT KILL THE STUPID CREWMATES

If you have one crewmate who is making a fool of themselves, let them do it. They will end upvoted out, or better still, they might get another innocent voted out first!

Kill verified innocents!

If White has done Medbay in front of multiple witnesses, you need White gone. Verified crewmates have a lot of pull when the vote happens, and you can’t easily cast doubt on them. These are always high priority targets.

If you can’t kill these guys, sometimes it’s enough to kill the people who verified them, especially when using voice communications, because people are forgetful, and there won’t be a chat log for people to check.

Kill or separate members of a pair!

If White and Red are sticking together, wait until they split up or separate them, and quickly kill one. Crewmates will usually recognize that the pair were together, and the other might even get sent to the airlock.

Section 3: Diverting Attention and Deceiving

This is arguably the hardest part of Among Us. Killing can be made mechanically, but lying, faking, and occasionally fixing + reporting takes a great deal of skill. Thankfully, this becomes more natural as you gain more playtime.

Act Natural

Remember the patterns you followed in previous rounds as a crewmate. If you tend to talk a lot as a crewmate, keep talking. If you usually stay quiet, stay quiet. Your visible behaviors should remain consistent.

When playing with a new group, don’t call attention to yourself with crazy behaviors.

Ask the question, “Who are we voting for?”

This lets you know who supports who and who will be an ally when picking off problem crewmates. The question itself is not suspicious, and it leads to free kills.

If you have nothing better to do, shut doors on small groups of crewmates.

As mentioned in section 1, this will drive people crazy with paranoia. The crewmates will often spend the lockdown running in circles to get away from each other.

Don’t accuse other crewmates.

People will usually vote for the first person accused and then turn on the accuser immediately.

There are exceptions to this. If multiple people saw Pink murder Blue, go ahead and be the first to cast a stone because Pink is getting vented anyway. With a little luck, you might earn some brownie points with the Innocents and buy yourself one more vote before they suspect you.

Another exception: If you have witnesses who saw Yellow chasing you around suspiciously for a long time, go ahead and throw Yellow under the bus.

Basically, only accuse others when you are forced to turn on your ally or when you can be relatively certain that you will be considered blameless when the accused turns out to have been innocent.

Pick aside.

When an accusation pops up, either support the accuser or support voting out the accuser. If the votes add up, you can score a free kill.

Read the room and advocate for skipping if no clear winner emerges.

Occasionally play pacifist

Suppose people have narrowed it down to Purple or You in the end game, advocate for skipping. You can kill people later as long as you survive the vote, and with Purple gone, you lose your scapegoat.

In this case, keep purple alive! Please don’t kill him until you are ready to end the game.

Don’t Panic

If Pink sees you use a vent, make your way to the meeting button as quickly as possible. Vent or Run; get there first. When Pink arrives, sabotage the lights and kill Pink before the lights come back.

If you are accused during the voting phase, either you messed up, or the crewmate is talking nonsense. Keep calm, divert attention, DON’T deny anything true (except for murder and vents), and hope for the best.

If you make accusations after the fact, you usually end up looking worse.

Don’t Verify Others

It makes your life harder. If the crewmate is gullible, you could say, “Not pink, I was with them,” prompting them to vouch for your location. Usually, though, the verified party will be a thorn on your side.

Talk First. Be Logical.

If Orange sees you kill Blue, Immediately say that Orange killed and self-reported. Again, the first person to speak is the one who commands the room. Obviously, if you verified Orange earlier, this will cause you a real headache, but otherwise, you have the advantage if you talk first. This is especially true if you are using voice communications.

If you can’t be first, be clear, honest(ish), and have a plausible reason to be where you are. If you can cast enough doubt, sometimes you can force a skip or cause people to miss the voting window.

Don’t be a Stalker.

If you engage in suspicious behavior, somebody is going to notice. This is exactly how we got Yellow-vented in a previous example, so don’t make his mistake!

Play according to your taskbar

If the taskbar is almost filled, you will have to play aggro. If it isn’t, control the crewmates by tactically sabotaging, shutting doors, and occasionally killing.

You can be a lot calmer and controlling when the crewmates don’t finish their tasks and almost always get them to vote each other out. When crewmates finish their tasks at a normal place, play with tempo, kill, and sabotage after (you can also track crewmates on admin.)

If the crewmates finish their tasks very quickly, you will have to go aggro, sabotage lights often, kill in semi-open areas, and even accuse others.

Don’t take chances

A 50/50 in the final 4 of somebody voting you is probably not worth it unless the crew is about to win a task victory. Always look for a better way out. Take advantage of the situation, and find away.

Section 4: Multiple Impostors

I’ve already covered a few tips for games with multiple Impostors, but this section focuses on them exclusively.

Multi Kills

When you find yourself in a room with your fellow Impostor(s) and an equal number of crewmates, you should try to position yourselves so that you can quickly kill all of the innocents before there is time for a report to go out.

Pick an innocent and stay close by. Be ready to kill immediately when the first death occurs.
Don’t initiate yourself unless you are confident in your teammate’s positioning.

Try to consider timing! If you know your ally score a kill recently, DO NOT INITIATE.
If your ally is still on cooldown when you kill, you will be put in a bad situation.

Read the room when voting.

It would help if you weren’t the first one to accuse your teammate, but once it becomes clear that they are getting voted out, it’s usually better to vote out your ally, rather than painting a target on your back by abstaining, or worse still, voting against the mob.

If you have a strong case to vote for someone else, it may be worth the risk. For example, if Pink has been following you all game and everyone is aware, go ahead and vote Pink. You might keep your ally in the game.

Don’t try this if your ally is caught red-handed, though. the Innocents will notice that your priorities don’t seem to be in order.

Don’t be a jerk

If your teammate gets you voted out, there are often reasons for it.

For example, if you go for a double kill and your ally reports instead, it might be because they still had a kill cooldown, and the surviving Innocent was verified.

If the entire group (except you) is together and stumble on a body, your ally might have no choice but to accuse you once others have connected the dots.

Please don’t spoil the game for everyone by outing them.

As a ghost, remember to stay focused!

Impostor ghosts are powerful allies to have, and you shouldn’t stop working towards a win just because you got vented!

Use your spooky powers for evil instead.

Ghostly Impostors can greatly impact the game by using their vision and mobility to scout and secure kills for the surviving Impostor. You can’t kill, but you can still sabotage and close doors, so remember to do so.

Separate crewmates! Your ally needs plausible deniability, and you can give it to them by forcing the Innocents to go it alone. Is everyone sticking together near Reactor? Lock a door to split them up before triggering Oxygen to shut down! This gives the Innocents two chances to single themselves out for an easy kill.

Even if all you do is keep the doors locked every time the cooldown runs out, you delay a task victory and give your ally time to strike.

Just try to watch what your fellow Impostor(s) are up to do, so don’t block them instead!

Section 5: Extras

Thanks for reading through this enormous wall of text and reaching the bottom!

One last thing. You can unlock a wide selection of Halloween themed hats by setting your PC’s Date to October 31, 2019, and starting up the game. It won’t make you a better Impostor, but you will look cooler, and isn’t that what really matters?

This is all about Among Us – The Complete Guide to Impostor; I hope you enjoy reading the Guide! If you feel like we should add more information or we forget/mistake, please let us know via commenting below, and thanks! See you soon!