Among Us was a phenomenon in its heyday, offering great content for streamers and influencers alike while being fun to play with friends. That popularity has decreased in the past year, however, with Steam numbers dropping significantly from a peak of over 400,000 players to just over 2,000 as of Nov. 10.
That’s why it was surprising to hear Among Us would be entering the realm of VR when Among Us VR was announced during the 2021 Game Awards. It was likely pitched during the game’s period of overwhelming popularity but comes at a time after people have lost interest in the series, which means it has a lot to do to gain a player base with a limited audience in the VR space.
Despite all this, the game is enjoyable. Dot Esports was given an exclusive first look at the game in a small play session and we were pleasantly surprised by how the game looks and plays, and how right it feels in VR. While it’s the same Among Us formula we know and loved these past few years, the game’s VR edition brings fresh ideas and a new dimension to make it better than the original it was based on.
VR helps you appreciate the level design and forces you to be more alert to all of your surroundings. In normal Among Us, you can see kills and who is jumping into vents from the overhead perspective, which makes outing the imposter easier. Whereas in VR, the imposter could kill someone from directly behind you and vent away, and you wouldn’t be able to see them. It’s a unique way of playing that forces you to be more aware of your surroundings and what you can see in front of you—and the same goes for imposters.
One of the biggest and best features to come with Among Us VR, though, is the implementation of beautiful proximity voice chat. Gone is the silent gameplay when you are now able to hear other crewmates that are close to you, adding a new dimension to how you experience the series.
During our play session, we were introduced to the advantages voice chat has in a game like Among Us. It makes each game, and each person you play with, feel unique. Nothing is more amusing than walking down a hallway to the sounds of a person whistling, only to hear someone go “oh, shit” in the next corridor moments before you hear their death sound effect. It brings a lot of comedy and awareness to the experience, and you can easily give yourself away as an imposter by whispering to yourself “what is the kill button again?” like one person in our game did moments before he was ejected out of the airlock.
With voice chat always on as well, you don’t get that separation between playing the game and the debate stage, where people discuss who saw what and who killed whom. Instead, you might hear someone scream or find a body, and then enter the debate period fluently with nothing disrupting the flow of the gameplay. You can be talking to a person from another room and then hear them suddenly go silent. “Is he dead? Did he just move further away?” It adds a level of anticipation and suspense you don’t quite expect.
It’s challenging to accurately pinpoint just how right it feels to be able to use proximity voice chat and how it can only work in VR. Sure, you can add the feature to normal Among Us, but it feels like it was made for the VR experience. That’s not to say everything works as intended when it comes to the game, though.
While we suffered from major lag spike issues, we couldn’t attribute that to the game due to playing with plenty of players across the globe and it not being the fully released official product.
There are also core aspects of the Among Us experience missing from the VR game due to “Oculus limitations,” according to the developers. These include the well-known camera feature on all maps where you can spectate the action from all areas of the map to catch a player off guard who hadn’t been checking to see if the cams were on.
We were told cameras could be added in the future and that the devs are looking into it. But for the time being, don’t expect to see a player “sitting on cams” all game until further in the VR game’s launch.
All in all, Among Us VR is fantastic, even if it’s lacking a few core features from the original game. It’s arguably the best way to play Among Us, which is a shame considering the high-cost entry of VR may prevent people from trying this iteration of the game. Many people will likely be unable to play this version of the game in the same numbers as the original PC game, but those who can are surely in for a treat.
Among Us VR is available now on Steam and Oculus.
