Having experienced a meteoric rise in popularity ever since it was discovered by the Twitch streaming community, Among Us is a deceptively complex game. While it may appear simple at first glance, the indie darling is more than just completing tasks and finding the impostor (or killing the crewmates while avoiding detection if you are the impostor). Its true depth comes from figuring out how the minds of the other players work and keeping your own desires secret.
While best played with a group of friends, with enough rounds you can figure out the strategies of unknown players. The hardest part truly is managing to keep your own plans secret during the always hectic emergency meetings.
15 Try Staying In A Group When You Sabotage
While this might not sound all that helpful, keep in mind that impostors have no idea about the tasks crewmates need to do. As a result, staying in a group and pretending to help out the crewmates is a wise course of action to take.
It helps that sabotaging a critical point means you can run there under the pretense of solving it with other people. It’s a minor act, but anything that takes suspicion away from you being an impostor is the way to go in this game.
14 The Chaos Of A Critical Sabotage Is A Great Way To Get Some Kills
A critical sabotage is one of the best moves in any impostor’s arsenal. Smartly using this sabotage tactic is highly effective when it comes to splitting up crewmates.
Doing this lets the impostor pick out stray crewmates and finish them off one by one. The fact that most people will be busy heading toward the sabotage point means that the body — or bodies, if you’re effective — won’t be found out until much later.
13 Multiple Sabotages Are A Great Way To Split Up The Crewmates
There are several sabotages aside from critical sabotages that players can perform in the game. These include everything from disrupting communications to turning off the lights.
Performing several sabotages in quick succession can throw most players for a loop. Crewmates will start panicking and rushing towards the sabotaged rooms, allowing you to net quick and easy kills as an impostor.
12 Plan With The Rest Of The Impostors On What To Sabotage If Possible
While this can be a rather tough task — and against the rules for some — it’s always wise to plan a course of action with the other impostors if you’re not alone. Coordinated killings and designated hunting grounds make for easy pickings and a quick victory.
Sabotaging is also something impostors should collude on. Deciding on which parts of the spaceship to sabotage in tandem will allow players to block off certain entry points and kill people at a moment’s notice.
11 Stay Familiar With The Timers For Critical Sabotages In Each Map
Do keep in mind that the cooldown timer for critical sabotages changes for each map. Knowing this is important to know where sabotages can be spammed and where players should be wary about using their valuable critical sabotages.
For players who are unaware, here’s a refresher — the timer for each respective map is 30 seconds for The Skeld, 45 seconds for MIRA HQ, 60 seconds for Polus, and 90 seconds for the Airship.
10 Turn Off The Lights To Split Up Groups
Sometimes, players will end up moving in large packs; it’s just a fact of the game. Whether they are doing so to stay safe, or they are all just heading to the same destination, it can make it extremely annoying to get a kill (without getting caught, at least).
The solution? Turn off the lights. While the Crewmates are distracted by their lack of vision, one of them can be picked off without notice. Once the lights come back on, nobody will have any idea who did the deed.
9 Sabotage On The Other Side Of The Map
Calling a critical sabotage on the opposite side of the map right after a kill has been made can be an excellent strategy, especially on large maps such as Polus. The crewmates will need to get over to the sabotage quickly or risk losing, giving you plenty of time to get away from the body and develop an alibi (as well as let your kill cooldown expire).
This strategy can be a bit riskier on smaller maps like The Skeld, however, as players often have enough time to make a quick sweep of nearby rooms before moving to the emergency.
8 Sabotage Close To The Body
If you are well known for calling sabotages on the opposite side of the map, it can be extremely effective to call one nearby instead (for example, sabotaging the reactor when you make a kill in security on The Skeld). While a player or two do a sweep of the other side of the map to try and find a non-existent body, you can safely get away from the evidence of your crime.
Depending on how long the crewmates take, it’s possible to get a second kill before they show up. This strategy is a bit riskier, but it can pull the suspicion away from you if done correctly.
7 Do A Critical Sabotage At 6 (If You Have Two Impostors Alive)
Probably one of the most well-known pieces of sabotaging advice, executing a critical sabotage when there are two imposters remaining among the six players is the easiest way to win.
The difficulty comes in timing the sabotage correctly. Too soon, and the sabotage can be fixed before the kill command is available. Too late, and the crewmates can call an emergency meeting to attempt to throw an imposter out. Call the sabotage at the right time, though, and the impostors can get a clean double-kill with no way to stop them.
6 Let Living Impostors Sabotage
Being dead as an impostor can be an excruciating experience. Unlike the crewmates, who can continue to complete their tasks, dead imposters can only sabotage. While it may be tempting to sabotage as a dead impostor, it is better to leave the primary sabotages to the living one.
They are the ones wholly in charge of whether the impostors can win and sabotaging while dead may screw up their plans to get a kill. It’s best to stick to only messing with the doors if you’re dead, as they won’t impact the living impostor too much.
5 Utilize The Doors Strategically
The doors are often one of the sabotages used the least often, as they have little overall effect on the game. The doors on Polus can be opened with a quick switch flipping game, and the doors on The Skeld stay shut for 10 seconds before opening automatically.
While the doors can be used to trap a crewmate in a room for a kill, a more strategic way to use them is to clear suspicion. Getting trapped in a room with a crewmate that suspects that you may be the impostor can make them assume that you would have killed them if you were, giving you an ally during the next meeting.
4 Disable Comms Early Rather Than Later
On most maps, comms have very little use, as they simply disable the cameras and task list. Disabling the comms at the start of the game will prompt the crewmates to fix them so that they can find their tasks easier. However, this becomes less true the later in the game it gets, as crewmates have fewer and fewer tasks to remember.
The one exception to this rule is Mira HQ. On this map, the comms also delete all entries on the door log and prevent any new ones from showing up until it is fixed. This isn’t very useful at the start of the game, as the many players will quickly cycle the log through the maximum of 20 entries, but as fewer players remain, it can be beneficial to clear the log to hide your activity.
3 Don’t Be Afraid To Fix Your Own Sabotages
Despite what newer players may think, impostors are able to fix the sabotages that they cause. While it can be useful to utilize those sabotages to get a kill or two, it can be even more useful if you use them to help clear suspicion.
While it’s not as effective at clearing suspicion as trapping yourself in a room with a crewmate, stopping a critical sabotage from going through can help players temporarily move their suspicions on to people that are absent from the sabotage.
2 Reactor And O2 Make Excellent Game Ending Sabotages
The critical sabotages, such as reactor and O2, are one of the few ways to guarantee that crewmates will split up, exposing them to being killed. At the end of the game, this can provide the precious few moments needed to get a clean kill.
In certain locations, such as the left seismic stabilizer on Polus, if you kill one crewmate at the start of the sabotage, you may just have enough time for your kill cooldown to reset before somebody comes to check why the left stabilizer isn’t being done, giving you an easy second kill, and potentially the win.
1 Know When Not To Sabotage
While sabotaging can be fun, and provide the crewmates with plenty of opportunities to see the fantastic death animations that the game provides, exclusively killing and sabotaging can lead to the players quickly figuring out the identity of the impostors.
So, while you practice your strategic sabotage skills, make sure you practice faking tasks as well. That way, you can build the rapport between crewmate and impostor… before you murder them in cold blood, that is.
