The unexpected success of the game two years after its release is an extraordinary event and not always extremely joyful. Youtube-blogger Anthony Padilla spoke with the founders Innerslothworking on Among Us, and they told how the sudden popularity turned out for them.
Artist Amy Liu admitted that she was definitely feeling burned out after three Innersloth employees were under pressure from the collapsing fame. And even as the studio expanded, it didn’t get much easier.
We were under incredible pressure to do everything as quickly as possible. From September to December, negotiations are underway with Xbox and Playstation… They agree to launch Among Us on their platforms, and this usually takes many months – from six months to a year. And we told them: three months! We must try.
Amy Liu
The period of viral popularity among Among Us fell on the height of the pandemic and lockdown, so, tired of work, the developers could not even relax with friends and family. And even though the money earned helped alleviate stress, as well as the feeling of fulfillment of desires, the pressure was still too high.
Every step we took was closely watched, and every little thing we did was reviewed and criticized. At some point we changed the font because it needed to be changed, and immediately the community exploded: “Bring back the old font! I don’t like the new font! “
Artist and Game Designer Markus Bromander
Disgruntled after every update built on a failed release attempt Among Us 2, announced that Among Us is dead. On the one hand, the developers tried to ignore such comments. But, on the other hand, they had to analyze each one so as not to miss constructive criticism.
There was a period at the beginning of the year when the abundance of negative comments really bothered me. I was already emotional, so I just said, “I don’t want to work on this anymore, I’m sick.”
Marcus Bromander
It was not easy for Innersloth Studios to bring players’ expectations to life. As programmer Forest Willard explains, the game’s simple art style suggests that it doesn’t cost anything to rivet new content. However, Among Us 2 was originally conceived because the original game tended to break with updates.
We tried to surpass ourselves, did everything on the fly, but it still took time. We were pressured by millions of players, and they did not understand what we were doing for months. Server issues should be fixed tomorrow, new content should be added next week – it looked so easy to them. And this is a lot of pressure. It’s overwhelming.
Forest Willard
Time passed and Among Us ceased to be a hot sensation. The game is still popular, and the developers are determined to support it, but they are not going to do it at any cost.
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