Among Us – The Comprehensive Guide

 

About This Guide

This guide is intended to provide complete information on Among Us gameplay. It has two major parts. The guide’s first part is devoted to a complete explanation of the game: the rules, mechanics, and tasks that make it work. The second part is dedicated to strategy and turning things in the first part to your advantage. If you’re already familiar with how Among Us works, you’ll probably find more useful information in the latter half of this guide. However, the first part may still have useful nuggets of information there that you didn’t know about.

Basics

Among Us is a game in which most of the players are crewmates assigned to complete a certain number of tasks on a ship or base. However, one or more of the supposed humans are aliens in disguise, called impostors. They can sabotage systems, crawl through vents, see in the dark, and murder crewmates. Players who are killed by an impostor or voted out become ghosts but can still help their comrades by doing tasks (if they were a crewmate) or sabotaging systems (if they were an impostor).

Any surviving player can call a meeting, either when discovering a body or by pressing the “Emergency Meeting” button in one of the rooms. During the meeting, they can share what they saw, strategize, and optionally vote someone out.

The crewmates win immediately if there are no surviving impostors left or all crewmates’ tasks are complete. The impostors win immediately if the number of surviving impostors equals the number of surviving crewmates, or the countdown timer on the sabotage of a vital system reaches zero. Note that one of these conditions can be triggered by a player disconnecting.

Player Roles

At the start of the game, each player is assigned a role:

• Crewmate: A human working to complete tasks and eject impostors. Crewmates do not know who the impostors are.
• Impostor: A disguised alien trying to kill the crewmates. The impostors are told who the other impostors are at the start of the game. The names of impostors are displayed in red to other impostors.

All players, both crewmates and impostors, are also in one of two states:

• Survivor: Still alive. All players start as survivors.
• Ghost: A player who has been killed or ejected.

The combination of these states dictate the actions you can perform:

All players

• Use consoles
• Read player chat

 

Everyone except living crewmates

• See in the dark

 

Survivors (crewmates and impostors)

• Report a body
• Press the emergency meeting button
• Repair sabotage
• Open/bypass doors
• Vote

 

Crewmates (living or dead)

• Do tasks

 

Impostors (living or dead)

• Sabotage

 

Surviving impostors

• Kill
• Use vent

 

Ghosts (crewmates and impostors)

• See ghosts
• See/move through walls
• Read ghost chat
• Chat between meetings

 

Maps

There are currently three different maps that can be played:

• The Skeld
• Mira HQ
• Polus

These maps have different tasks and features; these differences will be noted at the appropriate locations in this document.

Freeplay

The Freeplay mode allows you to practice a map alone. This is useful for learning the layout and features of a map and how to perform the different tasks on it. Near the emergency, the button is a laptop. Interact with it to enable or disable various tasks. You can also toggle between being a crewmate and an impostor. There will be several “dummy” crewmates standing around for you to kill as the impostor. If you “win” while in free play mode, the condition that caused you to win will be reset so that you can continue practicing.

Moving

Movement depends on your setup:

Desktop

You can configure it to use the mouse only, or mouse and keyboard. With mouse only, hold down the mouse button to move toward the cursor. With mouse and keyboard, use the WASD or arrow keys to move.

Mobile

You can use a joystick or touch controls. With joystick controls, a virtual joystick appears at the lower left; use it to move your character. With touch controls, hold your finger over the place you want to go to move.

Interacting with Objects

When you are near an object you can interact with; it will be highlighted. Click it or the button in the lower-right corner of the screen, or press SPACE or E to interact with it. These interactions are:

• Perform task
• Repair sabotage
• Call emergency meeting
• Open decontamination door
• Bypass sabotaged door (only on Polus)
• Use console
• Enter or leave the vent
• Sabotage

For all but the last three actions, the button is labeled Use. When the player approaches a console, the button changes to name the specific console. When a living impostor approaches a vent, it changes to say, Vent. When an impostor is not near any interactive object, the button says Sabotage (since you don’t have to be near a system to sabotage it).

Often performing actions will cause an overlay to appear, showing the details of whatever you are interacting with. While an overlay is shown, you cannot move or perform other actions or hear what is going on around you, and the display will largely obstruct your vision. If you are an impostor, your kill cooldown will be paused. The overlay disappears automatically when you finish working on a task or repairing sabotage. To close an overlay manually, click the X button or press ESC.

Doing Tasks

Crewmates (survivors and ghosts) can perform tasks at various locations throughout the map. When you approach a task’s location, the object with which you need to interact will be outlined in yellow. Walk up to it, then click it or the Use button, or press E or SPACE to open the task. When your action at that task location is complete, the panel will close automatically, or you can cancel by clicking the on-screen X button (or anywhere outside the task panel) or pressing ESC. Impostors cannot perform tasks.

Each map has a different set of available tasks, and each crewmate will be given a different set of tasks. Some tasks have to be executed in multiple stages and may require you to visit more than one location to complete it. You are not relieved from having to do a task on your list if someone else does it first.

Task List

At the upper left is the task list. For crewmates, this displays their individual list of tasks. For impostors, this displays a “sample” list that they can use to help them fake tasks. Each task shows the location where the crewmate should perform that task and a description of the task to be performed. When an impostor sabotages a system (other than comms or doors), it is added at the bottom of the task list and removed when repaired. If the comms system is sabotaged, the task list becomes unavailable until it is repaired.

The color of the task entry indicates its state:

Color	State
gray	not started
yellow	partially complete
green	complete
blinking red/yellow	sabotaged system

The task list can be collapsed or expanded by clicking on it. Note that at this writing, there is a bug where performing the Swipe Card task will often cause you to inadvertently collapse the task list because the card’s position when it is removed from the wallet overlaps with the task list.

Task Types

The host can configure how many tasks each type of crewmates will be required to perform. The three types of tasks are short, long, and common. The list of the tasks in each category is found in subsequent sections of this guide.

Task Progress

The bar at the top of the screen shows crewmate progress on completing tasks. A task counts toward the progress meter only when it is complete; performing a non-final step has no effect on cumulative task progress. The bar is divided into several segments equal to the number of crewmates in the game. However, only the cumulative progress of all crewmates is shown, not individual progress. Depending on game settings, this meter will be updated immediately when someone completes a task, only when a meeting is called, or never.

When a crewmate disconnects during the game, the progress bar automatically adjusts to show the remaining crewmates’ progress. This means that if the disconnected crewmate had more tasks completed than the average crewmate, the meter would decrease; if they had fewer than average completed, it would increase. Either way, one segment of the bar will be removed to show the decrease in the number of crewmates.

Visual Tasks

Some tasks are “visual tasks,” meaning that an indicator that the task was performed is visible to other players (if the game host enables the visual task setting). The visual tasks and the corresponding indicators are:

• Clear Asteroids (The Skeld, Polus): The laser cannons can be seen firing when this task is performed. This task exists on Mira HQ, but there is no visual confirmation.
• Empty Garbage (The Skeld): Garbage is ejected from the ship when the lever in Storage is pulled. The same task has no visual confirmation on the other two maps.
• Prime Shields (The Skeld): The shield emitters on the ship’s exterior light up the first time this task is performed and blink for subsequent times. There is no visual confirmation for this task on Mira HQ.
• Submit Scan (all maps): A green hologram appears around the crewmate after they stand on the scanning pad.

 

The Map

Clicking the Map button at the upper-right (or pressing TAB) pulls up a map showing your current location and the locations of any unfinished tasks. This is useful to orient yourself and figure out where you want to go next.

Available Tasks: Short

Short tasks can be completed quickly. The game host can set how many short tasks crewmates will be required to perform.

Align Engine Output (The Skeld)

Go to Upper Engine and access the panel on its front. Move the slider until the engine outline aligns with the centerline. At this point, you are intended to go down to the Lower Engine and repeat the process. However, there’s a trick where, if you go to the Upper Engine, move the slider, then immediately tap the knob again after releasing it, it will complete the entire task instead of the first phase of the task, making it so that you don’t have to go to the Lower Engine at all.

Align Telescope (Polus)

Go to the Laboratory and use the telescope. A celestial body is displayed at the lower-right. Drag around until you find that object, then centers it in the display. There will be a sound that will repeat more rapidly the closer you get to it.

Assemble Artifact (Mira HQ)

This task is located in the Laboratory. You will see five pieces of purple crystal. Arrange them until they fit together to form a single shard.

Buy Beverage (Mira HQ)

Go to the vending machine in the Cafeteria. Look at the beverage drawing at the lower-right, then find the code corresponding to that beverage—type that code on the keypad.

Calibrate Distributor (The Skeld)

This panel is found in Electrical. You will see three numbered rings. For each ring, there is a contact on the ring and one directly to the ring’s right. The first ring rotates, periodically causing the two contacts to line up and the lines on them to glow. Click the button to the right of that ring at the moment the contacts are aligned. Repeat this with the other two rings. If you press the button at the wrong time, all three rings will reset, and you’ll have to start over.

Chart Course (all maps)

This task is found in Navigation on The Skeld, Admin in Mira HQ, and the Dropship on Polus. Drag the ship icon through the three waypoints and to the target.

Clean O2 Filter (The Skeld, Mira HQ)

Go to O2 on The Skeld or the Greenhouse on Mira HQ. Drag the six leaves to the trash slot on the left.

Clear Asteroids (all maps)

You’ll find the controls in Weapons on The Skeld or Polus or the Balcony on Mira HQ. When you activate the task, you’ll see a translucent green screen with asteroids flying by. Click on asteroids to destroy them. You must destroy 20 asteroids to complete the task. If you are interrupted, you can resume where you left off. If visual tasks are enabled, the laser cannons can be seen firing on The Skeld and Polus when this task is performed. On Mira HQ, the task is not visible.

Divert Power (The Skeld, Mira HQ)

Go first to Electrical on The Skeld or the Reactor at Mira HQ and access the panel. One of the eight sliders will be highlighted; drag it as high as it will divert power to that system. Then go to where that system is located, access the panel there, and tap the switch in the middle to accept the diverted power.

Empty Garbage (Mira HQ, Polus)

Go to the Cafeteria at Mira HQ or O2 on Polus, pull down the lever there and hold it for a few moments. Unlike the version of this task at The Skeld, it only has one stage and is not a visual task. This task can be completed significantly quicker if you pull the lever down immediately when it appears before the trash has time to settle.

Fill Canisters (Polus)

When you access this task in O2, you’ll see a gas canister and a nozzle. Drag the canister to the nozzle and hold it there until it is filled. Repeat with the second canister that appears to complete the task.

Fuel Engines (Mira HQ)

Go to the Launchpad and access a panel there and hold down the refuel button until the engines are refueled to complete the task. Unlike the version of this task on other maps, this task requires that you visit only one task location.

Measure Weather (Mira HQ)

Go to the station on the balcony and press the Begin button on the right. Wait for five seconds, and the task will be complete.

Monitor Tree (Polus)

Go to O2 and access the panel there. You will see four sliders, each of which has a dotted line marking the target level for that slider. Move the thumb of each slider to the dotted line to complete the task.

Prime Shields (The Skeld, Mira HQ)

Go to Shields on The Skeld or Admin on Mira HQ and access the panel. You will see seven hexagons, some white and some red. Tap each of the red hexagons to turn them white and complete the task.

This is a visual task on the Skeld. The first player who performs it will cause the shield emitters on the ship’s exterior to light up. Subsequent players performing the task will cause them to blink. Prime Shields is not a visual task at Mira HQ.

On the Skeld, this task is actually accessible from a certain point on the opposite side of the red railing. This is a bit safer because it doesn’t force you into a place where an impostor more easily corners you, and if you are killed, your body is more easily visible.

Process Data (Mira HQ)

Go to the Office and access the panel. Press the upload button and wait for the upload to complete to finish the task.

Record Temperature (Polus)

This task can appear at two different locations: one outside to the east of the Office, and the other in the Laboratory. Go there and access the temperature display. You will see a reading on the screen to the right. Use the arrow buttons on the panel at the left to adjust the log to match the reading. If you’re at the exterior station, you will have to increase the log value; at the Laboratory, you’ll have to decrease it. Once the log value matches, the task is complete.

Repair Drill (Polus)

The drill is located at the Laboratory. Access its control panel to see four red exclamation point icons. Click each one repeatedly to shrink it until it disappears. When all four icons are gone, the task is complete.

Sort Samples (Mira HQ)

There’s a table with three boxes on it in the Laboratory. You’ll find six samples: two gems, two animal fossils, and two plant fossils. Drag each sample into the correct box to complete the task.

Stabilize Steering (The Skeld)

Go to Navigation to find the control panel. You’ll see a round screen with a dashed crosshair in the center; tap it to complete the task. (You can also drag the solid crosshair to the center, but simply tapping the center is quicker.)

Store Artifacts (Polus)

Head for the Specimen Room and open the red crate on the floor. You will see four objects: a skull, a crystal shard, a leaf, and a gemstone. Drag each one to its corresponding hole in the crate to complete the task.

Unlock Manifolds (all maps)

Go to the Reactor on The Skeld or Mira HQ, or the Specimen Room on Polus to find the control panel. It will show ten blue buttons labeled 1 through 10 in random order. Click them in numerical order to complete the task. Each correct button press will cause the button to turn green. If you get one wrong, the entire panel flashes red, the buttons are shuffled, and the task resets.

Available Tasks: Long

Long tasks take more time to complete than short tasks. The game host can set how many long tasks crewmates will be required to perform.

Empty Chute/Garbage (The Skeld)

Unlike the other two maps, on The Skeld, this task will have two stages: first, go to the Cafeteria or O2 (the task will say which), pull down the lever you find there, and hold it for a few moments. Then go to Storage and repeat the action there. The latter step provides visual confirmation: When you pull the lever in Storage, trash can be seen being ejected from the ship. This task can be completed significantly quicker if you pull the lever down immediately when it appears before the trash has time to settle.

Fix Weather Node (Polus)

First, the task will direct you outside to one of six weather nodes (the tesla coil-looking things on the ground). Each has a unique code:

• Node_CA: Between the Dropship and the Laboratory
• Node_GI: Between Electrical and Storage
• Node_IRO: Between the Boiler Room and Weapons
• Node_PD: Between Weapons and Admin
• Node_MLG: Just south of the Laboratory
• Node_TB: Just south of Electrical

Suppose you can’t remember which is which, just use your map to locate it. Once you access the node, you will see a maze-like circuit board. Drag the cursor from the terminal at the upper-left through the “maze” to the lower-right terminal. You can’t back up, so you have to start over if you go the wrong way.

Next, go to the Laboratory and access the panel there. You will see six switches, one corresponding to each weather node. One of the switches will be turned off, and the indicator next to it will blink. Flip that switch to complete the task.

Only one switch will be off, even if you have more than one Fix Weather Node task in the second stage. Reaccess the panel if you need to turn on another switch.

Fuel Engines (The Skeld, Polus)

Unlike the version of this task at Mira HQ, you fuel the engines manually, requiring more steps. First, go to the fuel can in Storage and hold down the button to fill the can. You’ll then need to go to one of the engines to fuel it, again by holding down the button until the can is empty. You must then go back to Storage to refill the can before fueling the other engine and completing the task. On The Skeld, the engines are located on the west end of the map; on Polus, they are outside on either side of the Dropship.

Interestingly, you must fuel the engines in order, and the order used on The Skeld is the opposite of Polus’s order. On The Skeld, you have to fuel the Upper Engine (port) first, then the Lower Engine (starboard), but on Polus, you have to fuel the east engine (starboard) first, then the west one (port).

Inspect Sample (The Skeld, Polus)

This task is found in the Medbay on The Skeld and in the Laboratory on Polus. Push the green button to fill the five test tubes. A 60-second countdown timer will appear in your task list, during which time you can leave and do other tasks if you like. Once the time is up, return to the station to find that one of the five samples has turned red. Push the button under that sample to complete the task.

Open Waterways (Polus)

There are three water valves on the map, two in the Boiler Room and one outside near Admin. Rotate each one counterclockwise until the water tube fills. When all three valves have been opened, the task is complete. The three valves can be opened in any order.

Reboot Wifi (Polus)

Go to Communications and access the router. Drag the red lever down to the bottom to start the reboot. A 60-second countdown timer begins, which is visible on the router screen and in your task list. During the countdown, you can leave and do another task. When the counter expires, come back and move the lever back to its original position to complete the task.

Replace Water Jug (Polus)

Go to the Boiler Room and fill the water jug, thereby holding down the red button. Go to the Office and do the same with the water jug you find there to complete it.

Run Diagnostics (Mira HQ)

Go to the Launchpad to find the panel for this task. Press the blinking red button to start the diagnostic. A percentage value will appear on display, showing how much of the diagnostic remains to be completed. A 90-second countdown timer will also appear in your task list, during which you can do other tasks. When the diagnostic is complete, return to the panel. Various systems will be highlighted on the diagram on the ship. One of them will be red instead of blue; click it to complete the task.

Start Reactor (all maps)

The controls for this task are located in the Reactor room on The Skeld and Mira HQ and the Specimen Room on Polus. You will see two panels: a screen on the left and a keypad on the right with nine buttons. Each has a row of five indicator lights at the top. This is basically a game of Simon Says, where the screen will flash a sequence of squares, then you must duplicate the sequence on the keypad. The first stage will flash one square; the second will show two, and so on up to five. The number of green indicator lights on the left panel will show which stage you’re currently on, while the number of green lights on the right panel shows you which square you are on for that stage. If you are interrupted, you can resume at the stage at which you left off. (In fact, if you forget what buttons you are supposed to press, you can close the task and reopen it to have the sequence repeated without losing your progress.) However, if you make a mistake, the buttons and lights on the keypad panel will flash red, and you will have to start over at stage one, with new random sequences. Once you complete the five-square sequence correctly, the task is complete.

Submit Scan (all maps)

Go to the Medbay on The Skeld or Mira HQ or the Laboratory on Polus. Stand on the scanning pad and activate the task. The scan takes approximately 10 seconds; then the task will be complete. Other players will see a green hologram appear around you while you are scanning if visual tasks are enabled. Even if visual tasks are disabled, if you have this task, you can 100% verify someone else standing on the pad by attempting to do the task before they finish. If they’re a crewmate, you will get a message saying you have to wait for them to finish.

Upload Data (The Skeld, Polus)

You will first have to go to a specific random control panel on the map; see your task list to find out which one. Once there, tap the Download button to download the data to your tablet. Then go to Admin on The Skeld or Communications on Polus to access a second panel. Tap the Upload button to upload the data to headquarters. This will complete the task.

Water Plants (Mira HQ)

Go to the upper shelf in Storage and click on it. Click on the watering can then go to the Greenhouse, where you will see four potted plants on a table. Click each plant to water them and complete the task.

Available Tasks: Common

Common tasks are always assigned to all crewmates. If you see a common task in your task list, all other crewmates will have it, too. If a common task is not on your task list, no other crewmates will have it. The game host can control how many common tasks each crewmate will be required to perform.

Enter ID Code (Mira HQ)

The panel for this task is located in Admin. Touch the white card in the wallet to reveal an ID code. Enter that code on the keypad. The task is complete when the code is entered correctly.

Fix Wiring (all maps)

This task requires you to access three panels in different locations and connect terminals with wires. Each panel has eight terminals, four on the left and four on the right. On each side, each terminal has a different color and symbol (red triangle, magenta star, blue cross, and yellow circle). Pick any terminal on the left, then drag it to the matching terminal on the right to connect them with a wire. Repeat this for the other three terminals to connect all eight terminals with their matching terminal on the other side. Repeat for the other two panels to complete the task. There are six of these panels on The Skeld and Polus, and only five in Mira HQ. The three you will be required to fix will be selected randomly.

Insert Keys (Polus)

Access the panel in the Dropship, where you will see a key and ten locks. One lock has an orange ring around it. Drag the key to that lock and release it. The ring will turn blue. Then rotate the key 90 degrees to complete the task.

Scan Boarding Pass (Polus)

Go to the Office and click the scanner. Press the yellow triangle to display your pass. Click the yellow arrow to flip it over, then drag it over the scanner. When the screen turns from red to green, the task is complete.

Swipe Card (The Skeld, Polus)

Go to Admin in The Skeld or the Office on Polus and access the card reader. Tap the white card to remove it from your wallet, then drag it to the right through the card reader. You must swipe it all the way across and not do it too fast or too slow. Note that as of this writing, there is a bug where the task list may collapse during this task because the card overlaps with it.

Sabotage

Impostors (living or dead) can sabotage systems to distract, threaten, and influence crewmates. The sabotage action is available to you as an impostor when you are not standing close to another usable object. Click the Sabotage button (or press E or SPACE) to pull up a map, then click the icon for the system you want to sabotage. You do not have to be near the system in question to sabotage it.

Once you have sabotaged a system, you must wait for the sabotage cooldown to expire before you can sabotage another. Additionally, only one type of system can be sabotaged at a time (except for doors on Polus). Sabotage of any system except doors disables the emergency meeting button, although players can still trigger a meeting by reporting a body.

Survivors (including impostors) can repair a sabotaged system by going to its location and performing an action there, much like completing a task. You cannot interact with a system unless it is sabotaged. A sabotaged system (other than comms or doors) appears in the task list until it is repaired. When a vital system is sabotaged, a klaxon sounds, and a countdown timer begins. If the system is not repaired before the countdown ends, the impostors win.

Below are the systems that can be sabotaged, their effects, and how they are repaired:

Communications

When comms are sabotaged, crewmates cannot see their task lists, and consoles do not work. At The Skeld and Polus, a player must adjust a dial to the correct position to repair the system. At Mira HQ, two players must use keypads at separate locations, and sabotage of comms clears the door log.

Doors

Clicking a door icon for a room will close all doors in it, preventing living players from passing through and possibly trapping them temporarily. Door sabotage works differently from other systems:

• Each room’s doors have a separate cooldown. Sabotaging a door activates the cooldown for that door, but not for other doors. This means you can sabotage all doors in quick succession if you like.
• Sabotaging a door does not disable the emergency meeting button.
• On The Skeld, sabotaging a door activates the cooldown for non-door systems, and sabotaging a non-door system activates the cooldown for all systems, including doors. A sabotaged door will reset and open automatically after 10 seconds, without any action on the player’s part.
• On Polus, door and non-door system cooldowns are completely separate; sabotaging one does not affect the other. A sabotaged door will remain sabotaged until a living player overrides it by flipping four circuit breakers.
• On Mira HQ, the only doors leading to the decontamination area are the only doors, and they cannot be sabotaged.

 

Lights

Sabotaging lights make it so that surviving crewmates can only see what is directly adjacent to them. Impostors and ghosts are unaffected. This allows impostors to act with significantly more liberty and makes dead bodies harder to notice. (The Report button will still light up as normal if the player is close enough, though.) To repair the lights, a living player must reset switches in a panel in Electrical (or Office in Mira HQ) to light all five indicator lights.

O2

O2 is a vital system: if it is not repaired before the timer runs out, the impostors win. Players must enter a code on keypads in two different locations to repair it. One player can enter the code on both pads, one after the other, but this risks running out of time. Both pads should be used simultaneously by separate players.

Reactor / Seismic Stabilizers

The reactor (The Skeld, Mira HQ) or seismic stabilizers (Polus) is a vital system: if it is not repaired before the timer runs out, the impostors win. Resolving the sabotage requires a hand scan at two separate panels. Unlike O2, the scans must be done simultaneously, so only one player cannot resolve it.

Consoles

Some consoles perform special functions. Any player (including ghosts) can interact with these consoles. They are not functional when the comms system is sabotaged.

Admin

This console is available in the Admin room. It shows a map where each room has several icons, showing how many living players are in that room. It does not show exact positions nor the identities of the players. Players who are in corridors are not shown, but impostors in vents are.

Security

This console allows the player to tap into the video feed of the security cameras on The Skeld or Polus. Security cameras have a full vision of anything within their field of view, regardless of player vision settings and even when the lights have been sabotaged.

The Skeld, there are four cameras, and their feeds are all visible simultaneously. On Polus, there are six cameras, but only one camera view is displayed at a time. When a survivor is viewing a security camera, a blinking red light will activate on that camera. If you are standing near a camera and see its light blinking, you are being watched. Ghosts can also view security cameras, but doing so does not activate the blinking light.

Doorlog

The doorlock station allows the player to see a log of players who passed sensors located at various Mira HQ places. It is not available on other maps. When a living player passes a sensor, an entry appears for that user in the door log. The doorlog only displays the 20 most recent detection events. Once a player trips a door log sensor, that player cannot trip the same sensor again for five seconds. This prevents a player from easily “erasing history” by rapidly walking back and forth over the same sensor. However, the door log entries are erased when comms is sabotaged.

Vitals

The vitals station is only available on Polus. It displays the vital signs of each player. You can use the vitals console to discover when a crewmate has been killed. There are three possible statuses:

• OK: Living players
• DEAD: Players killed since the most recent meeting
• D/C: Players killed previously, ejected, or disconnected without dying

 

Reporting a Body

When any living player is near a dead crewmate’s body, the Report button lights up. Clicking this (or pressing R) starts an emergency meeting. (See the “Emergency Meeting” section below.) This can be done any time you encounter a body; sabotage does not prevent it. Reporting a body also resets sabotage of any vital system. (This prevents reporting a body from making the situation unwinnable for the crewmates.)

Killing Crewmates

Living impostors have a Kill button. They can use this button whenever they are close enough to a living crewmate, have a direct line of sight to them, and the ability is not on cooldown. Clicking the Kill button or pressing Q causes you to “flash step” to the crewmate’s location and decapitate them. Their dead body will remain standing for a moment, then flop over. If this kill results in the number of living impostors being equal to the number of living crewmates, the impostors win immediately. Otherwise, the game continues.

As an impostor, you don’t have unlimited access to the Kill ability; it will sometimes be on “cooldown.” During cooldown, the Kill button is disabled, and the current number of seconds left in the cooldown is displayed over it. The kill cooldown is paused when an overlay is displayed, or you are in a vent. When the cooldown expires, the Kill button becomes enabled again. The Kill ability goes into cooldown for all impostors after a meeting and for individual impostors when they skill. The duration of this cooldown is configurable by the game host. Additionally, a 10-second cooldown (regardless of the skill cooldown setting) is applied to all impostors when the game begins.

Killing someone also causes the Report button to light up because you will be standing right on top of the dead body. Reporting a body you just killed allows you to pretend to be an innocent crewmate who just happened to run across their corpse. On the other hand, reporting the body resets sabotage and restarts your kill cooldown for the next round, so it may be to your advantage not to report it.

Vents

You will see several vents (or holes on Polus) around the map. Living impostors can enter and exit these vents and crawl through the ventilation system. To enter a vent, stand close enough to it that it is highlighted in red, and the Vent button appears. Click the Vent button (or the vent itself) to enter. You can then click the arrows to crawl to other vents and click the Vent button again to exit the vent.

On Mira HQ, all vents are interconnected. On The Skeld and Polus, vents belong to separate “vent groups,” You can only exit using a vent that belongs to the same group as the vent you entered.

Be aware that the animation of the vent flipping open and closed is visible even through walls.

Chat

The chat window can be opened by clicking the Chat icon at the upper-right. Living players can only chat during an emergency meeting and can only see messages from living players. Dead players can chat any time and see all chat messages.

While the chat is open, a Boot icon may appear underneath it. Use this button to vote to kick players who are being obnoxious. If enough players vote to kick someone, they will be removed from the game. Game hosts can kick people outright and optionally ban them, preventing them from rejoining.

Emergency Meeting

Any living player can call an emergency meeting. There are two ways to call an emergency meeting: reporting a dead body or pressing the “Emergency Meeting” button. This button is located in the Cafeteria on The Skeld or Mira HQ, and in the Office on Polus.

At the start of the game and after every emergency meeting, the button starts on cooldown. During the cooldown, nobody can press the button. The cooldown duration is configurable by the game host. The button will also be disabled if any systems (except doors) are sabotaged, and each player is only allowed to press the button a certain number of times (configured by the host in the game settings).

When a meeting is called, all players are teleported instantly to stand by the button. Ghosts are teleported, too, but do not participate in the emergency meeting. They can watch the proceedings and chat amongst themselves, however.

An emergency meeting has four phases:

Discuss

Players discuss what they’ve seen and made strategies.

Vote

This is the same as the Discuss phase, but voting is activated. Living players may vote to eject someone (or vote “skip” to eject no one). They may also refrain from voting (which is not the same as voting to skip).

To vote, click on the person you want to vote for or the “Skip Vote” button at the bottom, then click the green checkmark button to lock it in. To cancel your vote, click the red cross button instead. Be careful: once you have locked in your vote, you cannot change it. To refrain from voting, simply allow the timer to expire without voting.

Results

The results of the vote are shown. Each vote is displayed as an icon whose color corresponds to the player’s color who made that vote. If anonymous voting is enabled, all icons are colorless.

Ejection

If a player received the most votes, they are ejected, and depending on game settings, their identity may or may not be revealed. If the “skip” option gets the most votes, there is a tie or no one votes; no one is ejected.

The Discuss and Vote phases each have a time limit, the duration of which can be set by the host in the game settings.

If the meeting ends with an ejection, the game may end:

• If the last impostor was ejected, the crewmates win.
• If a crewmate was ejected, and the number of impostors now equals the number of crewmates, the impostors win.
• If neither of the above happens, or there was no ejection, all corpses are removed, all sabotage of vital systems is reset, and the game continues.

 

Game Settings

The player who created the game will be the host. If that player later disconnects, another player will become the host. The host can change game settings before the game starts by accessing the Customize laptop in the game lobby. Below is a description of each game setting and how it affects your gameplay:

Map

Which of the three maps (The Skeld, Mira HQ, Polus) will be played. Each map is unique, with different layouts, available tasks, consoles, etc.

# Impostors

How many impostors will there be? More impostors are more difficult for the crewmates. For example, let’s say that after a meeting, you accompany Lime while they do tasks, and they never leave your site and do nothing suspicious until a body is reported. If there’s only one impostor, you know Lime is a crewmate. But if there’s more than one, Lime could still be an impostor because the body could have been another impostor’s kill. With a maximum of 10 players in a game, three impostors are widely considered too difficult for the crewmates.

Confirm Ejects

If this setting is on, a message will appear when a player is ejected, stating whether they were an impostor or not and how many impostors remain. If it’s off, it will only state that they were ejected. Eject confirmation makes the game more difficult for impostors because they can’t make strong accusations without raising suspicion against themselves when they’re shown to be innocent.

# Emergency Meetings

How many times each player can push the emergency meeting button, from 1 to 9. Unless you’re playing among friends, it’s best to keep this number very low to prevent trolls from completely disrupting the game by abusing the button. However, having it below also presents the risk that a crewmate could witness a suspicious activity (such as an impostor venting) and cannot report it because they’ve used up their meeting quota already.

Emergency Cooldown

The amount of time the Emergency Meeting button is disabled after a meeting, between 0 and 60 seconds. Increasing this value ensures that there is still time to do tasks if people are overly enthusiastic about pressing the button. If this cooldown is longer than the kill cooldown, crewmates can’t guarantee that they can get a meeting before an impostor kills.

Discussion Time

How long the discussion phase of the meeting lasts, from 0 to 120 seconds. Setting this too short allows morons to vote before anybody has a chance to present evidence. Setting it too long risks forcing players to wait for voting to open when they’ve already finished their discussion. If you’re playing with friends who know what they’re doing, you should typically set this to be short.

Voting Time

How long the voting phase of the meeting lasts, from 0 to 300 seconds. Setting this to a short duration forces people to vote quickly but may cut short debate. Setting this too long risks forcing everyone to wait while someone drags their feet on voting.

Anonymous Votes

If this option is enabled, the voting results will only show how many votes were cast for each option, not who voted for them. In most public games, seeing votes tends to increase inaccurate accusations (because randos make stupid votes a lot), which helps impostors. Still, sometimes an impostor that makes a smart crewmate can smoke out an unwise vote.

Player Speed

How fast players move, from 0.5× to 3.0×. Slow speeds make games longer, and sabotage of vital systems becomes more dangerous because it takes longer for players to get there to repair it. Players may find the time it takes to walk between tasks frustrating. Still, it can sometimes make comically entertaining games when someone is being chased by an impostor veeeeryyyy slowly, especially in Hide and Seek games. Fast speeds make games shorter and sabotage of vital systems less dangerous, helping crewmates. However, if the speed is too high, people will tend to accidentally run past bodies and have to double back to report them, especially if crewmate vision range is minimal or the lights are out.

Crewmate Vision

Determines the range of vision for crewmates, from 0.25× to 5×. Smaller crewmate vision ranges are a buff for the impostors because crewmates must be closer to corpses or suspicious actions to see them.

Impostor Vision

Determines the range of vision for impostors, from 0.25× to 5×. This setting tends to be less influential than crewmate vision because impostors don’t have to watch for suspicious activity or report bodies. However, if the impostors’ vision range is higher than that of crewmates, impostors will tailor crewmates without their knowing.

Kill Cooldown

How long an impostor has to wait after a kill before they can kill again, from 10 to 60 seconds. Shorter kill cooldowns are advantageous to impostors. If the kill cooldown is shorter than the emergency meeting cooldown, the emergency meeting button cannot be used to guarantee a meeting before an impostor kills. Longer kill cooldowns allow crewmates to use the time immediately after a meeting to safely attempt tasks in dangerous locations.

Kill Distance

How close an impostor has to be to their target to kill them (short, medium, or long). Short kill distances require that impostors approach their targets to kill them, giving their target more time to get suspicious and run away. Long kill distances allow impostors to flash step much further to kill, increasing the distance that crewmates must stand apart from others to stay safe.

Visual Tasks

If enabled, certain tasks will provide visual confirmation when they are performed. This is a buff for crewmates since it gives them a way to prove that they’re innocent.

Task Bar Updates

It affects when players can see the task progress bar updated. “Always” means the bar is always visible and updated as tasks are performed. “Meetings” only updates the bar when a meeting is called; outside of meetings, the bar does not visibly advance. “Never” hides the progress bar entirely, removing this source of information from both crewmates and impostors.

Taskbar updates are generally considered a buff for crewmates because it gives them a way to detect when impostors fake certain tasks. However, it also gives impostors useful information, telling them whether they need to speed up their kills to prevent a crewmate win via task completion.

# Common Tasks

The number of common tasks assigned to crewmates, from 0 to 2. In general, more tasks decreases the likelihood of a crewmate win via task completion. Common tasks provide an opportunity to catch impostors faking because if someone appears to be doing a common task and it’s not on your task list, you know they’re faking.

# Long Tasks

The number of long tasks assigned to crewmates, from 0 to 3. In general, more tasks decreases the likelihood of a crewmate win via task completion. Long tasks are also riskier for crewmates because they generally have to stand in one place longer (especially for the Start Reactor task). Long tasks also can be more difficult to detect faking accurately.

# Short Tasks

The number of short tasks assigned to crewmates, from 0 to 5. In general, more tasks decreases the likelihood of a crewmate win via task completion. However, short tasks are easier for crewmates to perform and tend to detect faking accurately.

General Tips

 

Don’t cheat.

Cheating ruins the game for everyone, including yourself. There’s no satisfaction in winning a game unfairly tilted in your favor. So don’t use cheat mods, stream peek, communicate on back channels, or do anything else that gives yourself or others an unfair advantage.

Make sure you’re on the right server.

The globe icon on the online screen allows you to select your region. Choose the one closest to your location for the best network performance.

If you’re using voice chat, mute yourself as appropriate.

If you are dead or not in a meeting, you should be muted. This avoids inadvertently giving unfair evidence to other players.

Speak to your fellow players with respect.

It’s a game. Don’t freak out because you’re losing. Treat everybody with kindness. Well, except when you’re murdering them, of course. 😉

Check out the game settings in the lobby.

It’s best to know before the game starts that it’s using settings you don’t like.

Be patient in the lobby.

Don’t start spamming “START” in the chat right away. Many hosts prefer to wait a few moments to get the full complement of 10 players in public games because there are almost always punks who drop out shortly after the game starts. Speaking of which…

Don’t disconnect just because something doesn’t go your way.

Did you want to be an impostor but got a crewmate? Play it anyway; getting good at being a crewmate will make you a better impostor.

Has someone wised up to your impostor ways? Don’t disconnect; this is a great opportunity for you to practice your persuasive skills.

Did you get killed? Stay in the game, finish your tasks if you were a crewmate, or help your impostor comrade by performing well-timed sabotage.

People who disconnect just because something didn’t go the way they hoped are losers. Don’t be a loser.

Don’t be a troll.

Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you think you’re hilarious when you tell everyone that you’re the impostor when you’re not, or accuse random people of no reason, or pretend to be a clueless noob by saying stuff like “How do I vent like Cyan?” Anyone who has played a handful of games has already seen it. You’re not clever; you’re not witty, you’re just a lame troll. Knock it off and play the freaking game.

Kick troublemakers rather than voting them off.

If someone is trolling or otherwise causing problems, people will often vote them out. However, ghosts still have to do tasks, and most trolls can’t be bothered to do them, which eliminates one of the possible routes to victory for the crewmates. Instead, during a chat, look for the little “Boot” button under the “Chat” button. Click that, then select troll’s name, then click the “Kick” button. If enough players vote for someone to be kicked, they’ll be removed from the game. Only living players can vote to kick people (to prevent ghosts from just kicking the impostors). Game hosts can immediately kick people without a vote and can optionally ban them (meaning they can’t rejoin).

Use the official color names.

There are two blue colors and two green colors. The darker ones are called “blue” and “green,” while the lighter ones are called “cyan” and “lime.” Using these names avoids confusion.

Speak up if you’re color blind.

The developers are planning on adding color blindness support to the game, but in the meantime, let your fellow players know if you’re color blind and ask them to refer to players by their names rather than colors.

You can skip non-interactive overlays by clicking on them.

For example, tap the “Shh…” screen when it appears to jump into the game. Tap on the animation of your death to skip it and continue with your tasks.

You can move during the role display screen.

You can start heading in your desired direction as soon as you see the screen that shows whether you’re a crewmate or an impostor. Sure, you can’t see where you’re going, but it will start you out with a bit of a jump on the other players.

Be seen.

Try to make sure people see you as you go about doing stuff. If you’re off on your own too much, your fellow crewmates will start to wonder what you’re doing. In the absence of information, people tend to assume the worst. Of course, when you’re the impostor, there are certain times when you definitely don’t want to be seen, but otherwise, this advice still applies.

Build your alibi.

Make sure that you can readily explain your actions when asked in a meeting. Try to remember where you’ve been and who you saw where. For crewmates, this helps you gain credibility with others and figure out who might have been where a dead body was found. For impostors, it helps you lie effectively and frame others for your kills.

Don’t call a meeting unless there’s a good reason.

People will feel very negatively about you for wasting their time and are likely to kick you. And no, “I was lonely” is not a good reason.

Don’t spam the chat.

If a meeting starts and five people say “where,” you don’t need to be number six. Contribute something useful to the conversation instead.

Avoid being too talkative or too quiet.

Talking too much comes across as trying to control the conversation. Talking too little appears to be attempting to avoid notice. Both behaviors tend to make people suspicious.

Pay attention to people’s votes.

If the game is configured to show who voted for whom, pay attention to this information. Crewmates should watch for unusual votes and ask themselves why those votes were made. Impostors may get clued in on people who are suspicious of them without saying so in the meeting.

Remember that most randos in public games are dumber than a sack of pocket lint.

Play enough games, and you will witness people doing all of the following idiotic things:

• Swear they saw someone vent who ends up being innocent
• Accuse a dead person
• Accidentally accuse themselves
• Accuse someone they personally verified
• Watch you get killed in front of them and not report it.
• Runaway from sabotage of a vital system
• Accuse someone because “they locked me in Electrical with them,” despite still being alive
• Report a body or call a meeting then say absolutely nothing useful (or nothing at all)
• Accuse someone without a reasonable explanation
• Vote for someone without any reason to suspect them
• Claim they saw you fake a task in a room you never entered.

 

Understanding the “Fix Wiring” Task

The Fix Wiring task is unique: There are six different panels (five on Mira HQ), three of which are randomly selected for the task, but those three are always in the same order. This means that the odds that a particular panel will be the first, second, or last stage of the task will vary. The tables below show the panels for each map, and the odds that the panel is the first, second, or last stage in any sequence in which it appears:

The Skeld

#	Location	First	Second	Last
1	Electrical	100%	0%	0%
2	Storage	60%	40%	0%
3	Admin	30%	60%	10%
4	Navigation	10%	60%	30%
5	Cafeteria	0%	40%	60%
6	Security	0%	0%	100%

Mira HQ

#	Location	First	Second	Last
1	Storage	100%	0%	0%
2	Hallway	50%	50%	0%
3	Locker	17%	67%	17%
4	Greenhouse	0%	50%	50%
5	Laboratory	0%	0%	100%

Polus

#	Location	First	Second	Last
1	Electrical	100%	0%	0%
2	O2	60%	40%	0%
3	Office	30%	60%	10%
4	Decontamination	10%	60%	30%
5	Laboratory	0%	40%	60%
6	Lab restroom	0%	0%	100%

This information is useful to both crewmates for sniffing out impostors and to impostors to look innocent. Based on this information, here are some examples of scenarios on The Skeld in which a crewmate should be suspicious of someone who appears to be doing a wiring task due to order:

• Purple goes straight to the wiring panel in the Cafeteria when the game first starts. (The Cafeteria panel cannot possibly be the first one.)
• Cyan visits the Navigation wiring panel. Later, you see them at the panel in Admin. (If the Admin and Navigation panels are both present in the task, the Admin one will always be before the Navigation one.)
• Yellow does the wiring panel in Storage; then a meeting is called right after they leave. Yellow claims during the meeting that they are done with their tasks. (The Storage panel cannot possibly be the last one.)
• The game is always set to update the task progress bar. You notice that the task progress bar does not increase when Red leaves the Security wiring panel. (The Security panel is always last when it appears in the task, so someone completing it should always cause the task progress meter to increase.)

 

Survivor Count in the Endgame

If the ratio of crewmates to impostors among the survivors ever reaches 1:1, the impostors win immediately. If after a meeting the ratio has reached 2:1, the surviving impostors need only each follow a different crewmate and kill them as soon as their skill cooldown has expired. They can do this freely, even in front of witnesses, because as soon as the kills happen, the impostors win, meaning that there will be no time to report any bodies. Impostors who understand this will very much want to reach the 2:1 ratio, and crewmates obviously want to prevent this.

If the kill cooldown is longer than the emergency meeting button cooldown, the crewmates have an option for countering this strategy: stay by the emergency meeting button and press it as soon as it is enabled. To head off this strategy, the impostors can sabotage a system to disable the button and force the crewmates to leave, giving the skill cooldown time to expire.

Suppose crewmates find themselves at the 2:1 ratio while they must vote out an impostor or face open killing in a meeting. This means they should not vote to skip nor refrain from voting because doing so is essentially a vote to let the impostors win. But if they haven’t reached that point yet, they are better off voting to skip unless they have some decent evidence. Otherwise, the odds are strongly in favor of a crewmate being voted off.

Surviving as a Crewmate

 

Be careful of less-trafficked areas.

Impostors don’t often kill in hallways, especially in the early game, because it’s too easy to be caught doing it. They prefer areas where there is less traffic and aren’t easily observed from the hallways, so be careful about going into those areas.

Avoid being alone with someone you suspect.

If you walk into a room to do a task and someone you’re suspicious of is there, you may want to go elsewhere and come back later, especially if you’d be alone with them.

Avoid “stacking up.”

Sometimes multiple people stand in the same place (when fixing sabotage, for example). The problem with doing this is that it’s tough to tell who did it if someone in the stack kills. If you already see several people repairing sabotage in one place (more than the number of living impostors), stand back and watch instead.

Buddy up.

When crewmates stick together, they can vouch for each other. If you were with Orange the whole time and a body is discovered, you would know if they killed them, and they’d know if you did. If there’s only one surviving impostor, vouching for each other exonerates you both.

Obviously, buddying up with someone is dangerous if it turns out that they’re an impostor. Someone who has been previously cleared (witnessed doing a visual task, for example) makes a great buddy since you don’t have to worry about them killing you. Failing that, rather than just picking someone to follow around, it’s best to agree to buddy up with someone during a meeting publicly. This serves two purposes: 1) If your buddy is safe, an impostor will find it more difficult to kill you because your buddy will be a witness. 2) If your buddy is an impostor and they kill you, crewmates with any brains will have questions for your buddy. If they blame it on someone else, it will at least have been narrowed down.

If there’s more than one surviving impostor, things become a little more complicated:

• Impostors can vouch for each other, meaning that you have to have a group with at least one more person than the number of surviving impostors to trust the vouches.
• Even with a large enough group, vouching only guarantees that the group members did not perform that kill, not that they aren’t impostors. For example, say there are two surviving impostors, and two dead bodies are discovered. If a group of three players vouches for one another, you would know that none of them performed the kills. However, one of them might still be an impostor since the other impostor could have performed both kills (unless a body was discovered too quickly for the kill cooldown to expire in time).
• Guaranteeing that at least one member of a buddy group will survive any impostors in the group requires more group members, and guaranteeing enough surviving witnesses to outvote the impostors requires a still larger group. The table below gives the minimum group sizes to provide the mentioned guarantees for one, two, or three impostors:
  

  Number of impostors	1	2	3
  Vouches can be trusted	2	3	4
  Guarantee a survivor	3	5	7
  Guarantee survivor crewmate majority	4	7	10

 

Beware of “bystander syndrome.”

Unless you are doing the last task for the win, you should not ignore a vital system’s sabotage. Assuming that someone else will deal with it, it has given many wins to impostors. Also, being seen ignoring sabotage is a great way to get ejected.

Don’t assume that sabotage of a vital system is being fixed because someone is standing there.

An impostor can stand there and do nothing. If you assume the sabotage is getting fixed, you may not realize that it’s not until it’s too late. If you have n living impostors, the ideal situation is n + 1 people working at a repair site (to guarantee that it’s actually being fixed), plus one additional person watching the group from a distance (so there will be a witness if someone is killed while repairing).

Tips for Doing Tasks

 

Do your freaking tasks.

It’s easy to get caught up running around trying to catch impostors red-handed or find bodies, but it’s super important to complete your tasks. Crewmates who complete tasks put time pressure on the impostors, making them more likely to make mistakes. If the impostors see that crewmates aren’t doing their tasks, they can afford to take their time waiting for perfect kills.

Getting killed actually makes it easier to finish your tasks: you’re already dead, so you don’t have to worry about whether it’s safe to go into a room with someone, you can pass through walls, and you can keep doing tasks during sabotage since you can’t fix it anyway. It might be tempting to follow the impostors around and watch them kill, but your fellow crewmates are counting on you to finish your tasks.

Encourage others to do their tasks.

It’s a generally un-suspicious thing to do, and it puts pressure on the impostors. Ask who still has tasks and whether they’d like a buddy. Ghosts can read the chat, too (although they can’t respond), so encourage them to do their tasks, as well.

Take a moment to look over your task list and make plans.

This can prevent you from needlessly traversing across the map and help you get your tasks done sooner and more safely. Some things to consider:

• What task sites are close to one another?
• Where will I have to go next for a multi-step task?
• Is this a visual task?
• Which task is the most dangerous?

 

Do dangerous tasks immediately after meetings.

After every meeting, impostors start with a full kill cooldown (unlike the start of the game, which is only a 10-second cooldown, regardless of the game setting). This is a rare opportunity to get something done without worrying about getting killed. For example, Electrical is widely considered to be the most dangerous location on The Skeld. So when you first start, check to see if you have any tasks in Electrical, and save those to do immediately after the first meeting. You may even be able to do more than one if the kill cooldown is long enough. However, if the kill cooldown is 10 seconds, the advantage of this practice disappears.

Take advantage of visual tasks.

If visual tasks are enabled, watch others do them, and get others to watch you. Anyone who performs a visual task is guaranteed innocent. Save your visual tasks for the end so that if you are being accused, you can try to convince your crewmates to spare you and watch you do the task.

You don’t have to wait for a panel to auto-close.

After you finish a task, the panel will close automatically after a short delay, but you can actually close the panel immediately when you’re done to leave a moment sooner.

Try not to stand unnecessarily close to others.

It’s good to move together to watch each others’ backs, but your fellow crewmates get jumpy when someone stands too close to them. Standing at a respectful distance when you can help assure them that you’re just trying to keep them safe rather than looking to shank them. It also has the advantage of keeping you from being too close to someone who may end up being an impostor. Also, avoid standing at choke points where someone would have to go near you to pass.

Make yourself useful when your tasks are done.

Some things you can do include:

• Offer to watch people do visual tasks.
• Follow crewmates that still have tasks to watch over them in case they get killed. You may want to follow the previous advice about maintaining a respectful distance to make them feel more at ease (and protect yourself if they turn out to be an impostor).
• Use consoles to try to sniff out the impostor.
• Run around, looking for bodies.

 

Catching Impostors

 

The last round’s angel could be this round’s devil (and vice versa).

One would hope that this would be obvious, but someone’s role in any previous round has nothing to do with their role in the current round. You know that super-nice crewmate that did a medbay scan and followed you around to watch over you while you did their tasks in the previous round? That same person can knife you in the back this round. Then they can go back to being totally innocent in the following round. Don’t make assumptions about someone’s role based on outdated information.

You should usually report bodies.

If you find a body, report it immediately. Yes, sometimes people baselessly accuse others of self-reporting but being seen leaving the crime scene (or worse, standing over the body) without reporting it is way more suspicious. Also, reporting a body automatically repairs vital systems sabotage.

There are two scenarios where you might consider not reporting a body:

• The lights are out. In this situation, you can more plausibly deny having noticed the body, and it might be more important to finish the last task, for example. Keep in mind, though, that crewmates are far more easily killed in the dark.
• You reported the previous body. Reporting multiple bodies in a row will cause some people to think you are a self-reporting impostor.

Remember, however, that meetings are the only way for impostors to be killed, so deliberately choosing not to report a body should be relatively rare.

If you witness the body still standing, the killer was just there.

Check rooms along your way.

As you move to your next task, poke your head into other rooms to check for bodies. The longer a body remains undiscovered, the more likely it is that the killer will get away with it. You also might peek in just in time to catch an impostor doing something suspicious.

Use the consoles.

The consoles can help you look for suspicious behaviors to identify impostors. But don’t neglect your tasks!

• Watching cameras may allow you to catch someone killing or venting, entering one room, leaving another, etc.
• The admin and door log consoles may allow you to detect venting by noticing unusual patterns of movement.
• A crewmate’s icon on the admin console will momentarily disappear when they are killed. If you see more than one person in a room, and then someone’s icon blinks out and then back in, they may have just died.
• The vitals console can help you know exactly when someone dies. This can be useful if the body is reported immediately after the killing since you can guarantee that the killer is still next to the body.

 

Pay attention to common tasks.

If a common task isn’t on your list, nobody else has it, either. If you see someone apparently swiping a card on The Skeld, and you don’t have that task, they’re probably an impostor.

Distrust people who finish tasks too quickly.

Some tasks take longer than others. If someone appears to be starting the reactor and they’re done in three seconds, you should be suspicious of them since normally the task takes much longer. However, keep in mind that some tasks can be resumed from where they left off after an interruption, meaning that they can appear to complete them faster.

The Divert Power panel in the Reactor room on The Skeld is fake.

No real task occurs there. If someone is standing there, they’re probably an impostor.

Using the Task Progress Meter to Catch Impostors

 

How the Task Progress Meter Works

If the game settings have the task progress meter getting updated immediately when a task is completed, crewmates can use that information to help them determine whether someone is faking tasks (and is therefore likely an impostor). First, it is important to understand how the meter works:

• It will increase when a crewmate finishes a task.
• A multi-step task will only increase when the crewmate finishes the last step in the task; completing a previous step results in no change.
• A ghost crewmate still has to do tasks, so someone getting killed does not affect the meter.
• The meter may increase or decrease when a crewmate disconnects. If they have completed fewer than the average number of completed tasks, the meter will increase; if they’ve completed more than the average, it will decrease. You will know if this is the case because you’ll see a disconnect notice, and the number of segments in the task meter will decrease.

 

Catching Impostors with the Task Progress Meter

When you see someone leaving a task site, check the task progress meter. If it increases, it’s evidence that they are a crewmate. (It’s not proof, though, since someone else may have finished a task at the same time, including a ghost.) If it doesn’t increase, that can be cause for suspicion. However, keep in mind that there are legitimate reasons why someone might leave a task site without the meter going up; be sure to consider them before reporting someone for faking:

• The task has multiple stages, and this is not the last stage. (The meter only increases when the last stage is complete.)
• A system has been sabotaged, and they’ve decided that it’s more important to address that than finish their task (particularly sabotage of a vital system).
• They’re worried that someone nearby is planning to kill them. (Maybe you!)
• They saw suspicious activity at the edge of their screen and are heading off to report it.

 

Non-Final Task Sites

The following is a comprehensive list of task locations where the player may have a non-final task step. If a site does not appear in this list, you can always use it for detecting fakes. Some of the sites listed might still be the final step for the task; those sites are marked with an asterisk and are explained below.

The Skeld

• Align Engine Output: Upper Engine*
• Divert Power: Electrical
• Empty Chute: O2
• Empty Garbage: Cafeteria
• Fix Wiring: Admin*, Cafeteria*, Electrical, Navigation*, Storage
• Fuel Engines: Storage, Upper Engine
• Inspect Sample: Medbay*
• Upload Data: Anywhere except Admin

Mira HQ

• Divert Power: Reactor
• Fix Wiring: Greenhouse*, Hallway, Locker*, Storage
• Run Diagnostics: Launchpad*
• Water Plants: Storage

Polus

• Fix Weather Node: Outside
• Fix Wiring: Decontamination*, Electrical, Laboratory* (not in the bathroom), O2, Office*
• Fuel Engines: Outside (starboard engine only), Storage
• Open Waterways: Boiler Room
• Reboot Wifi: Communications*
• Replace Water Jug: Boiler Room
• Upload Data: Anywhere except Communications

 

Details

Determining whether a site is the last step in the Fix Wiring task is more complicated than the others; it is explained in detail in the “Understanding the ‘Fix Wiring’ Task” section of this guide.

The Inspect Sample, Reboot Wifi, and Run Diagnostics tasks require you to act, wait for a certain amount of time, then perform a second action at the same location. Most crewmates will do something else while they’re waiting and come back later, so the task completion meter may not go up when they leave.

The Align Engine Output task on the Skeld can be ended at the Upper Engine rather than the Lower Engine as intended due to a bug; see its entry in the “Available Tasks: Long” section for details.

The last phase of the Divert Power task is very short: you literally tap one control in the center, and you’re done. Anyone who stops at one of these panels should only stand there for a moment before the task progress meter increases. If you see someone stop at one of these panels and the meter increases as expected a moment later, they’re almost certainly a crewmate.

Confirmations

As a crewmate, a primary objective is to confirm who is a crewmate and an impostor. If eject confirmations are on, the game will inform you if an ejected player was a crewmate or an impostor. However, you would prefer to know before you eject them.

Confirming Evidence

The following scenarios confirm someone to be a crewmate:

• They have been murdered.
• You see them do a visual task (and nobody else was doing it simultaneously), and the confirmation animation occurs.
• They perform a medical scan with visual tasks off, and you have the same task but are told to wait until the other player is done scanning when you try to do it.
• There is only one surviving impostor, a body is reported, and you know they did not enter the room the corpse was found in between the time you last knew it to be clear and the time the body is reported. (Usually, the way you know this is that you are with them that whole time. Remember that impostors can travel through vents.)

The following scenarios confirm someone to be an impostor:

• You witness them murder someone.
• You see them enter or exit a vent.
• You witness them enter a room with a vent and no other exit, but they are gone when you enter.
• You know that they were the only player not already confirmed a crewmate who could have been at the body at the time of the murder. (For example, the murdered player starts alone in a room with no vent and never leaves. Only one other player enters afterward.)

An example of the last point: You are the only person in a room with no vent. You leave it just as Red, Lime, and Cyan enter. Nobody else enters or leaves; then Lime reports Cyan’s body. Lime and Red accuse one another. Because you know that those three were the only ones in the room at the time of the murder, it can’t have been any other player. But then you remember having seen Red perform a medical scan, so you know that Lime is the impostor.

Non-confirming Evidence

Sometimes people mistakenly believe that something confirms another player’s role when it actually doesn’t. This may cause them to make incorrect accusations or trust players they shouldn’t. Here are things people say that is evidence but not proof:

“They were standing over the body.” The player you find in the same room as a body is often an impostor, but not always. They may have just arrived at the corpse and were just a little bit slow reporting it. They may have been wrapped up in a task display and not noticed the murder that happened right at their feet. Even if you know the body wasn’t there a few seconds ago, the impostor may have vented out.

“They ran away from the body.” Someone leaving the scene of a murder is usually the impostor, but they may have simply not have noticed the body (especially if the lights are off). They might be a newbie who doesn’t realize they can report the body where they find it and run to the Emergency Meeting button. Or they witnessed the murder and ran away because they were worried that another nearby player might be a second impostor going for a double kill. Or there’s only one impostor, but in the heat of the moment, they forgot about the kill cooldown.

“They’re safe; they did a task.” A player is not a crewmate simply because they leave a task site while the task meter goes up. Another player may have performed a task at the same time, maybe even a ghost.

“They faked a task.” Conversely, from the previous point, a player is not an impostor simply because they left a task site and the meter didn’t go up. The game might be set to update the meter only at meetings, or never. It might not have been the final task site. They may have had some other reason to leave before finishing the task (sabotage, they thought they were to be killed, they saw something suspicious and will call an emergency meeting, etc.).

“They were chasing me.” More often than not, you’re just paranoid. They may simply have had the same destination as you.

“They had a great opportunity to kill me, and they didn’t. Pretty decent evidence, but by no means is it proof. They may still have been on their skill cooldown. Or they saw a potential witness that was just out of your view. Or they chose to stay their hand to gain your trust.

“They were moving/on a vent/at a console when the sabotage happened; they’re safe.” You can move while the sabotage screen is up, and the best impostors do exactly that.

“They paused just long enough to perform sabotage.” It may have been a coincidence that they stopped at that time. Maybe they wanted to take a moment to look at their task list and decide what they would do next. And of course, once the sabotage happened, it’s perfectly rational for them to start moving toward fixing it.

“They were running away from sabotage.” They might have been fleeing a potential murderer. Or they had the last task before the crewmates won and felt it was more important to get that across the finish line. Or they simply got their vital systems confused and were accidentally heading for the wrong one.

“They locked me in the room with them.” Think about it: being locked in a room alone with someone is the perfect opportunity for murder. So why are you still alive? Probably because the other person wasn’t the impostor. Many impostors will close doors at random just to mess with crewmates and cause false accusations like this one. Remember, the impostor that just closed that door in front of you could be on the opposite side of the map.

Don’t forget: People are irrational.

Added to all of the above is that quite a few players act in ways that are just plain irrational (especially in public games).

Crewmates in Emergency Meetings

 

Don’t announce right away when you’ve verified someone.

Telling the world that someone is safe makes them a high-priority target for the impostor(s), effectively painting a big red bulls-eye on their forehead. You should wait to reveal that information at the appropriate time:

• If the verified crewmate accuses someone of killing, venting, etc., but the others don’t believe them, revealing that you’ve verified them can increase their trust in the verified crewmate.
• If the verified crewmate is being suspected, you can exonerate them.
• Accusing a verified crewmate of killing or venting is extremely suspicious, so that a smart impostor won’t do it. If you don’t reveal that you’ve verified them, the impostor may fall into the trap of accusing them.

 

Back up your accusations and distrust people who make baseless accusations.

Smart crewmates will be suspicious of baseless accusations. Explain why you accuse someone. If you’re not certain about what you saw, say so. If you have no reason to suspect someone, keep your trap shut. If someone accuses someone else with no evidence, you should be suspicious of them. And, no, “they’re kinda sus” is not evidence. Ask for specifics.

Being followed may or may not be suspicious.

It’s natural to be nervous about someone who seems to be following you. However, most of the time, being near someone decreases your odds of being killed. While it might be an impostor waiting for a good moment to decapitate you, it could just as easily be a friendly crewmate who is trying to keep you safe. Consider this before calling someone suspicious for following you.

Don’t vote too quickly.

Many innocent crewmates have been ejected because someone accused them, and they were voted out too quickly before someone had time to point out that they’d been verified innocent. Don’t vote as soon as an accusation occurs. Allow time for discussion.

Skip voting if there’s no significant evidence (usually).

It is typically best for crewmates to vote to skip if there is no decent evidence pointing to someone. This is because there are always more crewmates than impostors in meetings, and impostors are unlikely to vote for one of their own. With people voting essentially randomly, a crewmate is far more likely to be ejected than an impostor.

The exception is when the 2:1 crewmate-to-impostor ratio is reached. In this situation, if the crewmates don’t vote out an impostor, they can be killed openly, so they should vote randomly than skip.

Vote for people who make strong accusations that turn out wrong.

If someone turns out to be innocent, think about who accused them in the past, especially if they claimed to have witnessed them kill or vent. Someone who makes strong accusations against an innocent crewmate is either an impostor or clueless.

Offer to be ejected next if people doubt your accusation.

If eject confirmations are on, you can strengthen your accusation by telling people to eject you next if it turns out that the person you’re accusing isn’t an impostor. Some people don’t like this move because they feel it takes some of the fun out of the game, but it tends to be pretty persuasive. Make sure you’re 100% positive before whipping this bad boy out, though.

Use meetings to strategize.

People tend to spend the whole meeting time talking about who to eject and often forget that you can discuss other things, too. Use that time to coordinate buddy groups or ask people to watch you do a visual task.

Faking Tasks

Real humans (the ones that aren’t morons, at least) do tasks. As an impostor, you can’t, but you can pretend to do them. Appearing to wander around aimlessly makes you look suspicious, especially in the early game. You can use the task panel at the upper-left for ideas of tasks you could pretend to do. Then walk up to a task, stand there for a bit pretending to do it, then move on. Some things to remember:

• Tasks take time, and some take longer than others. Make sure you spend the appropriate amount of time with the task to be convincing.
• If visual tasks are on, don’t pretend to do a visual task since the crewmates will be tipped off when they see no visual confirmation.
• Even if visual tasks are off, it’s probably best to avoid the Submit Scan task because it’s still possible to tell you’re faking. When the task is being done for real, the game moves the character being scanned to a specific location on the pad; crewmates might notice if you’re not standing in the correct spot. Even if you are correctly positioned, if someone else has the task and attempts to do it while you’re pretending to scan, they won’t be told to wait their turn, which reveals that you’re faking.
• If the game is always configured to update the progress bar, be careful about faking tasks at locations where the meter can be expected to increase when you finish. Try waiting for the meter to start increasing before you leave to be more convincing. Faking this is easier at the beginning when nobody has completed tasks yet. In the late game, you can more easily claim to be done with tasks instead.
• Don’t fake tasks where your time at the last panel is expected to be very short, such as the Divert Power task, since you can’t really hang around and wait for the meter to increase. (Also, watch out for the fake Divert Power panel in the Reactor on The Skeld! No real task uses it.)

 

Killing While Evading Detection

 

Consider not wearing accessories.

If you choose to wear an accessory, your character will be more easily identifiable, which can be a disadvantage. For example, a crewmate may catch a glimpse of you running away from a body. In this scenario, you want to be as unmemorable as possible since your survival depends on the crewmate, not remembering enough detail to identify you. A nondescript-looking individual is less memorable than someone with a mowhawk.

Think about how your behavior as an impostor compares to when you’re a crewmate.

If you play with the same people a lot, they will start to notice if you develop certain habits or if your behavior as an impostor is different than when you’re a crewmate. For example, suppose on The Skeld you like to wait in Navigation for someone to come, then kill them and immediately sabotage the reactor to draw people away from the body. If you do this too much, your friends may realize that when the reactor is sabotaged, if you take a while to show up to repair it, and then a body is found in Navigation, it’s probably you. Likewise, if you always head to Electrical as an impostor and don’t when you’re a crewmate, your friends will start catching on. Either make your behavior consistent as impostor vs. crewmate or vary your behavior to keep people guessing.

Pace your kills against task completion.

If the game is set to update the task progress meter, you can use this information to your advantage. If the pathetic humans are being slow about doing their tasks, take your time to make sure your kills are clean. If the meter is filling fast, you need to kill the meatbags to prevent them from winning quickly.

Don’t vent in front of crewmates.

Being seen entering or exiting a vent will send the witness scurrying for the Emergency Meeting button. If someone does catch you, hurry and kill them if you can, or be prepared to do some high-stakes lying if you can, sabotage doors before you vent in or out of a room so that nobody will see you do it.

Use vents to intercept an escaping witness.

Say you get busted emerging from a vent in Security on The Skeld, and the witness takes off before you have a chance to kill them. Don’t chase them; they run just as fast as you, so you’re unlikely to catch them. Instead, think about their route: The most direct path to the Emergency Meeting button is through the Upper Engine, then along the north hallway to the Cafeteria. The medbay branches off of that hallway, so vent into the medbay and intercept the witness!

Use consoles to find targets.

The admin console, in particular, helps locate isolated crewmates. If, for example, there are three crewmates left, and you see two of them in security and one in comms, you probably want to head to comms!

Don’t kill when there are more crewmates than impostors present.

Remember that impostors are subject to a kill cooldown. If a room contains two impostors and three crewmates, you will only be able to kill two of them (assuming no impostors are on cooldown), leaving the third alive to report the murders.

Kill console campers.

People on consoles are a serious threat to you. So if you notice someone is spending a lot of time at a console or seeing the red camera light on, consider going in and killing them. Even better, if there are two people wrapped up in the console simultaneously, you can kill one and report it and claim that you walked in on the other one standing over the body.

This has an additional advantage: Killing people dedicated to getting their tasks done is less helpful since death only makes it easier for them to do tasks. However, people who camp consoles tend to be more interested in witnessing murder than getting tasks done. When you kill one of them, their ghost is likely just to follow you around rather than use their newfound invincibility to finish their tasks. This increases your chances for victory since the crewmates can’t win via task completion if even one of them ignores their tasks.

Kill in less-trafficked areas.

The more well-traveled an area is, the more likely you will be caught red-handed, especially in the early game when there are more crewmates.

Don’t forget about security cameras.

The Skeld and Polus maps have security cameras. If you see a blinking red light, you are being watched, so be on your best behavior. (Maybe visit security instead and of the watcher!) Note that on Polus, only one cam can be viewed at a time, so they are less dangerous than on The Skeld.

Make use of the double kill with a fellow impostor.

People tend to feel safer when they’re in a group, but with two impostors, a group of four is by no means completely safe. If you see two crewmates sticking together, follow them with a fellow impostor. Wait until the four of you are alone, then kill them both at the same time. It is important that the impostors trust each other to pull this off; if one impostor hesitates, the surviving crewmate can report the body. Maintain situational awareness to be ready to pull the trigger when you are in the appropriate scenario for a double kill.

Don’t get caught at the scene of the crime.

Once you kill someone, don’t stick around. Being seen at the scene of the crime is very likely to get you ejected. If a vent is nearby, that might be the preferred exit. If you accidentally come upon a fellow impostor’s kill, either report it or immediately leave before someone sees you.

Pretend to discover your kills with a fellow crewmate.

One way to look innocent is to wait a short distance away (at least far enough that you can’t see it) just inside an empty room. Wait for someone to pass by, then pretend to be leaving that room and follow them to the body. The crewmate will usually be convinced that you aren’t the killer because you “discovered” the body at the same time they did. Sabotaging the door further solidifies in the other person’s mind that you are not the impostor since they will often unconsciously (and incorrectly) assume you could not have been in the room.

The Art of Sabotage

 

Sabotage the lights to hide your dirty deeds.

When you cut the lights, crewmates can only see immediately around themselves. This means you can kill or vent in the same room without seeing or trail someone without their knowledge. It also makes it less likely that a corpse will be noticed.

Sabotage to keep people away from your kills.

For example, suppose you just killed someone in Navigation in The Skeld. This would be a great time to sabotage the reactor, which will draw people to the opposite side of the ship, making it less likely that the body will be found quickly. You may even buy yourself enough time for your kill cooldown to expire, allowing you to get in a second kill before the first one is found.

Sabotage comms to deal with console campers.

Those consoles are particularly dangerous to you, so if you see people using them, disable them by sabotaging comms. This works well combined with the previous tip: killing the crewmate furthest away from comms when you sabotage will maximize the time that the body remains undiscovered.

Sabotage to distract crewmates from their tasks.

If you see that the crewmates are getting their tasks done pretty quickly, use sabotage to distract them.

Sabotage doors to avoid unexpected witnesses.

Ready to kill someone but are worried about someone else walking in just in time to witness the act? Sabotage the door first to prevent unexpected guests, then vent out after the kill. (Make sure your kill ability isn’t on cooldown first!)

Sabotage doors to stop an escaping witness.

Were you just seen popping out of a vent? Sabotage the door to prevent the witness from escaping and calling an emergency meeting, then waltz over and kill them.

Sabotage doors to isolate people.

People tend to run in groups for safety—sabotage doors to cut people off for an easier kill.

Sabotage to enable stack kills.

Sabotaging lights, for example, causes people to stack up to repair it. If enough of them congregate there, it will be tough for them to tell who killed, especially with the lights off!

Sabotage when a crewmate wants to press the Emergency Meeting button.

Let’s say you accidentally pop out of a vent in front of someone, and your kill cooldown is still active. The witness is going to head for the Emergency Meeting button to report you. Wait until they’re almost there, then sabotage. This will disable the button, and hopefully, your kill cooldown will have expired soon enough for you to wax the witness.

Another scenario to consider is when the number of crewmates is double the number of impostors or fewer. Here, the normal impostor strategy is for each impostor to follow a different crewmate and kill them as soon as the kill timer expires. Smart crewmates will prevent this by calling an emergency meeting as soon as the button is enabled. Sabotaging a vital system disables the button and forces crewmates to leave to address the sabotage, allowing the impostor(s) to get in the final kill(s).

Sabotage comms to clear the door log.

Mira HQ is unique with the door log feature, which shows an entry every time someone passes certain sensors on the map. Suppose you’re concerned that the door log could be incriminating, sabotage comms. Not only does this render the doorlog inoperable, but all log entries will also have been erased once it’s back up.

Sabotage doors to cause hysteria.

Say you are using the admin console and notice several people in a room together. Sabotaging the door is a great way to induce mass panic. In the next meeting, sit back and smile as the baseless accusations fly.

Sabotage on the run.

You can still move while the Sabotage map is up. Pausing a run just long enough to sabotage is a little suspicious, so this is a handy tip.

Sabotage from the grave.

If you’ve been ejected, but there’s at least one surviving impostor, follow them around and make strategic use of sabotage to help them out. For example, let’s say they’re about to kill someone in Security. Since you’re dead, you can see through walls, and you might notice that a potential witness is about to round the corner and see the kill. This would be a great time to sabotage the door, allowing the killer to vent out without being seen.

Psychological Manipulation as Impostor

 

Create unwitting allies.

Gain a crewmate’s trust by hanging around them for a while (at a respectful distance) without killing them. You might also give them a “soft vouch” (e.g., “I think Orange is clear; it looked like they were doing a task”). This can increase the crewmate’s trust in you and make them less likely to vote for you. This ally might just be enough to save you if people start suspecting you.

If you gain enough trust that your ally speaks up for you when you are suspected, they will often start hanging around you by the endgame. This makes it much easier to get them alone to kill them. If you are suspected of killing them, you have a persuasive argument, “Why would I kill someone who was defending me?” Most crewmates will not realize the flaw in this argument.

Kill verified crewmates, spare suspected crewmates.

If a crewmate has cleared themselves, you should typically eliminate them as soon as possible. Otherwise, if they catch you doing something, they’ll call you out, and you’ll probably be ejected. On the other hand, don’t waste your time killing crewmates who are already suspected. Let the worthless humans kill each other while you focus on the ones that aren’t suspected.

Kill skilled crewmates, spare noobs.

When you play with the same people for a while, you will start to get a sense of who knows what they’re doing and who doesn’t. Skilled crewmates are dangerous crewmates, so whack them. The survivors will be much more prone to making mistakes, making it more likely that you will get the win.

Lie as little as possible.

The more lies you tell, the harder it is to avoid getting caught. For example, if a body is found in Navigation and you claim that you were in Security, you’ll be called out if a crewmate was there and knows that you weren’t. On the other hand, when someone can verify something you say as true, you will be more trusted.

If crewmates are accusing one another, let them.

In this situation, the crewmates are doing your job easier, so you don’t want to do anything to mess that up. Staying completely silent can work, although some crewmates may suspect you for it. Another option is to try to look helpful by occasionally asking supposedly useful questions, like asking someone who was accused of their last task. Looking helpful can make you seem more trustworthy.

Avoid making strong accusations when the Confirm Ejects setting is on unless ejecting a crewmate will give you the win.

If you accuse a crewmate of killing someone right in front of you, even the worthless humans will probably figure out that you’re an impostor once your accusation is shown to be wrong. So don’t make strong accusations if you can avoid it. However, this changes if you are close enough to a win that you can prevent another meeting. In that case, feel free to lie up the wazoo if it will get them ejected instead of you.

Frame crewmates with the truth.

Occasionally you may witness a crewmate doing something that could look suspicious, even though you know they’re innocent. You can use this to frame them and get the other crewmates to eject them. It’s always better, to tell the truth when you accuse when you can, as you won’t have to worry about being contradicted.

If you must make a strong accusation, be emphatic.

People tend to believe people who are more emphatic in their accusations. This doesn’t just mean using all caps. This means using vivid imagery: “Caught Cyan killing in Security.” “It wasn’t me!” “The body was still standing! Seriously, vote them out!”

In the early game, it’s best not to counter-accuse when accused.

Crewmates tend to resolve the dilemma of two people accusing each other by ejecting the first one, then the other, especially if eject confirmations are turned on. Instead, try to provide a believable excuse to convince people to skip voting instead. This is less of an issue if getting a crewmate ejected will allow you to clinch the win, however.

Accuse first.

Especially in public games, people tend to vote quickly after the first accusation, before the accused even has a chance to respond. If you intend to accuse someone, use this flaw to your advantage by accusing quickly before anyone else has a chance to accuse you.

Vote with the crewmates, even against fellow impostors.

When you vote the same as the majority, you are less conspicuous. If the tide of popular opinion turns against your comrade, vote them out. That way, at least their ejection will have the benefit of building trust in you. If you’re getting voted out on the other side of the coin, don’t get mad at your fellow impostor for voting for you. They’re just trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Hide and Seek Mode

The hide and seek variant is a set of rules that make for a different gameplay experience. The game itself does not enforce these rules, so it will require that the players be willing to go along with it, which means this is best played in a private game. The modified rules are as follows:

• Play with one impostor, typically with impostor vision set rather low. Crewmate vision may be high or low, depending on preference. Kill cooldown is 10 seconds. Meeting timers are set as low as possible.
• For the best experience, players should be on voice chat together. If voice chat is unavailable, set the emergency meeting cooldown to 0.
• When the game begins, the impostor immediately outs themselves to the other players. (If no voice chat is available, they should call an emergency meeting to out themselves over chat.)
• The impostor then waits at the start location for a certain amount of time (20 seconds, for example), then begins looking for people to kill.
• Crewmates should not report bodies or call emergency meetings, and the impostor should not commit any sabotage.
• Dead players mute themselves as normal, but surviving players remain unmuted. (Feel free to scream when you’re killed before muting, though!)
• Same win conditions apply: the impostor wants to kill enough crewmates, and the crewmates need to complete tasks.

Some variations to these rules include:

• The impostor sabotages the lights at the start, and crewmates are forbidden from repairing them.
• The impostor sabotages comms, forcing crewmates to wander around to find their tasks, and crewmates are forbidden from repairing it.
• Crewmates aren’t allowed to do tasks. In this case, the crewmates’ only objective is to hide from the impostor, and the winner is the player that was still alive when the game declares defeat for the crew. (Note that the impostor cannot win in this variant.)