Among Us VR feels like a far more immersive way to doubt your friends

For years, Among Us has been a great way to get together with your best friends and doubt the heck out of each other as you try to sus out who’s your actual pal and who’s a dirty murderer. With Among Us VR, Schell Games and Innersloth aim to bring players closer to the immersion of its spaceman social deduction whodunnit than ever before. I recently got a chance to play the game and take up both sides of the treachery, and I came away more excited than ever to pin crimes on my pals in this VR adaptation of Among Us.

Getting behind the visor

I think one of the biggest strengths of Among Us VR is going to be that so much of it is a well-implemented 1:1 adaptation. The gameplay loop of the VR version plays just about the same as the original mobile, console, and PC versions. The main difference is that now you have control of your hands and use them in a number of typical Among Us activities on both the crew side and the imposter side.

One or more players will be picked as a hidden imposter and everyone else will be crewmates on board a ship. The crewmates run around the ship trying to do tasks that will allow them to win if they complete them all. Meanwhile, the imposter runs around sabotaging the ship and killing off crewmates one by one. If there’s ever as many survivors as there are killers, the imposters win. Just as well, at nearly any time, crewmates can either find a body or just call a meeting to share their view of suspicious activity. That leads to a discussion and vote to try to get rid of the killer or killers. Voting out all imposters is also a win for crewmates (but you can also vote and kill off innocent crewmates).

Where VR boosts all of this is in providing more hands-on immersion to all of it. Each activity has you actually handling mechanics of the ship, such as inputting coordinates on a targeting computer, pulling levers to calibrate power, operating a keypad to stop a reactor shutdown, and more. The meeting button is also big, red and shiny and is instantly delightful to mash when you think you’ve got something to share.

On the imposter side, you have a cooldown to killing like in the main game, so you can pass the time by running around with fellow crew members and making it look like you’re working. You can also bring up the map with a button press to set up sabotages like the aforementioned reactor shutdown, as well as light and door malfunctions if you want to isolate a would-be victim. Need to move fast or stealthy? You can jump into the vents to lurk about the ship and spy on players. To kill anyone once your cooldown is timed out, just run up to them and press a single button to kill them off. If you are killed, you’ll rise as a ghost and still be able to do your chores as well as conversate with your fellow dead crewmates, but living crew won't be able to see or hear you.

And that last part leads into another really fun point of Among Us VR. You can talk to other players in-game, but only if you are alive with the living crewmates or among the dead crewmates. The reach of your voice is also attached to your character. If other players get too far away, they won’t hear you scream and say “it’s that guy” as he stabs you. And that doesn’t even get into body language. Among Us VR lets players express themselves with full control of their hands. Don’t want to look suspicious? Better speak up and not look fidgety with your hands as you make your case.

I had a lot of fun with this. In the main lobby of the game, there are food carts, so when we were discussing, I’d run over to the carts and play around as a pretend hotdog vendor as everyone was casting blame. Sometimes it made me look questionable, but I was having fun, and silly things like that are just things that Among Us VR allows you to do where the original game can only allow so much expression.

Look 'em in the face face while you eject them into space

My time with Among Us VR was short, but sweet. This is almost exactly like the core game in pretty much every way from start to finish. You can even choose your color and put a fancy hat or accessory on your astronaut. There are also a lot of ways to customize how the first-person gameplay handles, including tunnel vision, snap-turning, smooth and teleport movement, and plenty more options you’d expect out of a proper first-person VR game. Making this experience more tactile and allowing players to be more expressive in their truths and lying is just a cherry on top. If you’ve got pals in VR and want a great social experience, Among Us VR is shaping up to be quite a fun game to play.

This preview is based on a hands-on session organized by the publisher. Among Us VR comes to most VR platforms including Meta Quest 2 and SteamVR on November 10, 2022.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.