Fortnite is no stranger to taking a popular concept and putting it into its own game. The now successful battle royale mode in Fortnite stemmed from the increasing buzz around PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds at the time, and now its new Impostor Mode is eerily similar to Among Us. Its resemblance is so striking that a couple of members of the Among Us team at developer Innersloth have publicly called it out.
Fortnite's new mode sees ten players working together in a secret base to complete tasks. However, one member of the team is an impostor and is working on their own terms to take down other players. Sound familiar?
Gary Porter, a unity programmer on Among Us, was one of the team members to call out the game. Porter shared two images - one of the Among Us map and another of Fortnite's Impostor Mode map. He added he hasn't tweeted recently due to working hard on Among Us, revealing it "feels weird to be compelled to tweet again because of stuff like this".
In a follow-up tweet, Porter said that while he didn't work on the Skeld map personally (the one referenced in the image), he is "still kind of offended".
The game's community director Victoria Tran also spoke out about the new mode, saying it would have been "really, really cool to collab" instead. Tran added that while game mechanics shouldn't be gatekept, other developers should at least incorporate their own ideas into the mix.
https://twitter.com/TheVTran/status/1427725916994682887?s=20
It's worth noting that Among Us wasn't the first of its kind, with other tabletop games such as Werewolves Within arriving before it, but without its success, we can't imagine Fortnite would have been inspired to make this mode.
As for when Among Us is arriving on Xbox systems, we're still not sure yet. The game is currently available on Xbox Game Pass for PC, but no word on when its console port will be arriving has been shared. That being said, there are some lovely physical editions of Among Us on Xbox in the pipeline, so hopefully it won't be much longer.
What are your thoughts on Fortnite's new game mode? Let us know in the comments below.
[source twitter.com, via twitter.com]
Comments 13
Couldn't care less about either game to be honest.
I think we all saw this coming for a while.
The same could have been said about Among Us for other games though? The Innocent vs Traitor gameplay style has been around long before Among Us. Games like GMOD:TTT had it, Mafia, Werewolf. Others in a similar vein are Project Winter, Dread Hunger etc.
I get that they used the word "Impostor", but they have to use one word for it, and it probably is the most fitting.
It's just having attention drawn to it because it's a big game, but I'm guessing Among Us has been ripped off more directly than this in the past 2 years. Just by smaller devs who didn't get attention.
This is one of those fine line deals.
Technically, Epic hasn't done anything wrong or illegal. The game mode, and even the naming convention are, and should be, free to use by others. Just like how Halo has a campaign mode, and a PvP multiplayer mode with game types like capture the flag.
I think the issue is an ethical one, with Epic essentially throwing around its corporate billionaire weight to muscle out a successful smaller business by leeching their idea. And all the while, acting like a small guy.
Not sure what leg they have to stand on. I've been playing games of this type well before Among Us was ever thought up.
Going all the way back to 2002's Warcraft 3 with custom games like Parasite and Imposter.
There’s a fine line between copying the idea and the implementation. I get imposter games existed before but it seems like Fortnite copied it exactly down to the terminology used in game and even the map.
There have been plenty of FPS games since Doom but not all of them are called Boom and feature a gun called the BFG.
Same as It’s fine to make another open world cowboy game. You can even call it Red Deader. But if you copy the open world exactly down to the last tree and rock surely everyone can agree that’s in bad taste?
Seen some people try to defend this move. It’s baffling. They basically copied the map! It’s ridiculous! Sure there are other similar games, but they all have their own settings thing. It would had been so easy for Fortnite to make it spy themed instead of literally a lab with an “imposter”.
I just kinda wish Fortnite would die already.
Dont get me wrong Among us doesn't hold exclusive rights to this game type, but Fortnite is copying everything here even the layout is "similar but legally distinct"
But as they say, you snooze you lose and considering Among Us is on Switch, and just has a big ??? for its Xbox and PS release. I can't blame Epic for taking that opportunity, just like I couldn't condem all those Minecraft clones when Mojang was taking "too long" to port it (and seem to be doing it again on Quest now).
Call of Duty: Double Agent. Everyone wants to cash in.
@OliverOwen Cool! Thanks for letting us know!
@XxEvilAshxX Weird stance to have, but okay...
Haven't played Fortnite in ages. But I find it stunningly easy to just ignore.
@Holmes108 You're welcome! That's the great thing about the internet is being able to voice your opinion that no one asked for!
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