Among Us finally saw its first console release this week on the Nintendo Switch and, well…it’s just a straight up port of what people have been playing, and loving, on PC and their mobile devices since it launched back in 2018.
It’s now easy to zap the game to your TV and use analog sticks to move your Crewmates and Imposters around with ease. It’s the main reason the game never caught on with me on mobile — touch controls are not the business.
For your $5 on Nintendo Switch you get a few additional cosmetic (read: hats) options. And you have access to the same three maps (The Skeld, Mira HQ, and Polus) and can host/join any matches being played on other platforms since the game supports cross-play.
Other than that, it’s kind of a bare-bones port of what we’ve seen before. It plays well because the game’s engine can most likely run on a potato and it’s cool that there’s cross-play but there’s no download play support and no effort to make a smooth transition to consoles. The mini-game “tasks” are still easier with touch — instead of using analog and buttons — but the Switch’s capacitive technology just barely matches up with what your $1,000 phone can do.
No voice chat support means you better start creating some key words for your predictive text pop-ups on the Switch and playing on the TV, as expected, means using the D-pad to move around a virtual keyboard on screen.
It’s a serviceable Nintendo Switch port, but the game is free on mobile and relatively cheap on PC where a real keyboard is part of the deal to make the “Emergency Meetings” truly work. It seems like Innersloth just went for a money grab on a machine ripe for a quick port before a full upgrade on other consoles. PlayStation and Xbox ports would require at least voice chat implementation to make the sort of wackiness Among Us is known for to work.
They should get on it, though…Epic’s Fortnite will be attempting to eat their lunch soon with their own send-up of the game in “The Spy Within” mode.
We Got Comms! 