Among Us beginner tips and tricks for betraying your friends

So, you’ve decided to betray your closest friends. Or maybe you’re one of the good ones, just pootling about the spaceship trying to get your job done while everyone else is getting worried about this whole stabbing business. Among Us has all but taken over Twitch, and if you want to join in the fun as well, it’s worth learning a few tricks that’ll keep you alive, or help you get the drop on your unwitting friends. To that end, we’ve put together a list of some simple Among Us tips and tricks for beginners, whether they be traitors of crewmates.

Among Us beginner tips and tricks

We’ve separated our tips below into general advice, then tips for innocent Crewmates, and finally for the sneaky Imposter. Scroll down to whichever area interests you the most.

General tips

• Set a mute key. Ensure everyone playing has a method to mute themselves on Discord or whichever chat program you use. It’s extremely important that players cannot hear one another during the majority of play.
• Tweak the settings. Before the game starts, we recommend adjusting a few of the rules, reducing vote time but upping discussion time to give more opportunities to argue over who’s an imposter when someone reports a body, then forcing quick decisions at the end. You can also reduce kill range and time for the imposter depending on how well they’re doing. Click here to learn how to adjust game settings.
• Swap to mouse + keyboard. By default, Among Us will be controlled only with a mouse. However, the game becomes a lot easier if you swap to keyboard and mouse. This will mean you can keep moving while clicking buttons like kill as an imposter, or reporting body as a crewmate. 
• Study the map well. You’re going to need to be able to run through it quickly without hitting a dead end when chased. You can press M to bring up the map while playing.
• Know the tricks. Only the imposter can travel through shortcut holes in the floor, so remember this when playing or watching others if someone appears to pop up out of nowhere.
• Emergency Meetings. You (usually) only get one Emergency Meeting use. Don’t waste it.
• Death isn’t the end. Even if you’re dead, you can still complete tasks to help your crewmates succeed!
• Ghost messaging. Dead players can also chat to one another using the in game chat log. Their messages cannot be read by living players.

Crewmate beginner tips

• Keep your distance. The killer needs to get up next to you to perform an execution (range depends on the game settings). Stay away from others and you won’t get stabbed.
• Groups of three or more are safer. Contrary to the previous point, if you’re certain that another player is safe, sticking in groups means that the Imposter can’t take one of you down without the other alerting the group to the body. It’s not foolproof, but numbers can provide a level of protection against being shanked. When the group splits up, keep an eye on who follows others off so you can remember when a body is found
• Make sure the coast is clear before starting a task. Imposters often like to sit just outside of a room until they know a victim is vulnerable. Check the close corners before you head in and commit yourself to completing a task.
• Watch the task bar. Any time someone completes a task in Among Us, the green bar in the top left with progress. Imposters have a few fake tasks they can complete, but often they’ll pretend to be doing something while waiting for the chance to strike. If someone is sat next to a task, watch them and see what happens. Take care not to get stabbed though.
• Use discussion time to plan strategies. If someone suspicious claims they were trying to complete a task in an area, insist that everyone follow them there at the start of play again. This way you can watch them complete the task and check if the bar goes up. If it doesn’t, eject them.

Imposter beginner tips

• Pretend to be scared. This applies in discussions as well, but mostly when it comes to moving around. When you see another player, rather than acting confident and running past them, you’ll often come across more believably if you hesitate and back away from them. Act like you’re afraid of getting stabbed, and people will be more likely to trust you in future. Speaking of which...
• It pays to build trust. If you share a room with another player early and avoid hurting them when you easily could, you can build up a level of trust that could save you in conversations. Next time a meeting comes up, be sure to mention that you think that person is safe because they could have attacked you, and hopefully they’ll back you up as well.
• Vents are speedy, but make sure the coast is clear. Vents can be used to hop all over the map as an imposter, but you have to be certain no one will see you. If they do, you might need to kill them immediately or bluff your way out of a meeting.
• Decontamination doors are a great place to get a kill. Each map has a few decontamination rooms which take time to use. If you hear someone enter on the other side, hang out right next to the door. Players will almost never enter one in pairs, meaning you can catch someone out as they exit.
• Kill, vent, sabotage. A good system for keeping people away from the bodies you've left behind is to kill a player near to a vent, hop in it, then Sabotage a different area of the map. This will move the core group of players away from the body's location, meaning it'll take longer for it to be discovered, and give you an excuse to run to another region.
• You can report your own kills. Sometimes the best way to escape suspicion is to report your own kills. If it’s early in the game, pretend you just found the body. If you’re down to just four players, you can use this chance to kill one then report and desperately blame another remaining player and secure the win. You’ll need to be a pretty convincing liar to pull this off, however.

That's all we've got so far for our Among Us beginner tips and tricks guide. Hopefully the advice we've given will help you stay alive on the ship, or successfully sabotage your way to an imposter victory! For more Among Us content, click here to visit the hub page.

Henry Stenhouse

Associate Editor

Henry Stenhouse serves an eternal punishment as the Associate Editor of AllGamers. He spent his younger life studying the laws of physics, even going so far as to complete a PhD in the subject before video games stole his soul. Confess your love of Super Smash Bros. via email at henry@moonrock.biz, or catch him on Twitter.