TL; DR
- Innersloth members say Fortnite’s Impostors mode is almost a direct copy of Among Us.
- This not only includes gameplay, but also terms, themes, and card design.
- There are no immediate signs of lawsuit, and some of Innersloth have offered to work with other studios.
A new, temporary “Impostors” mode in Fortnite from Epic Games is frustrating Among Us developers, Innersloth, who argue that it is an unimaginative copy of their own social inference game.
As among us, Impostors has most of the players doing chores while a handful of intruders – literally called “cheaters” in both titles – try to kill or sabotage them. The similarities extend to meetings, polls to track down suspects, and even a quick chat menu that wasn’t previously in Fortnite. Victoria Tran, Innersloth’s community director, said on Twitter that she doesn’t mind copying Epic’s game mechanics, but that the company should at least have used “different themes or terminology.”
like game mechanics okay, shouldn’t they be protected, but at least different topics or terminology make things more interesting? 😕
programmer Gary Porter accused Epic of copying Among Us’s most famous map, Skeld, by simply flipping a few elements to make it different. Innersloth co-founder Marcus Bromander repeated Tran, suggesting that Epic should have put “10% more effort” into developing the gameplay model.
Innersloth did not threaten legal action, but people like Tran and another employee Calum undergrowth, have offered to work with studios that are considering similar gameplay.
It is not clear whether a lawsuit would stand a chance. Epic has hundreds of millions of dollars to defend itself, and Among Us itself is modeled after other social deduction games like Mafia / Werewolf that date back to 1986.
What do you think of this whole situation? Is it fair to copy a game to this level, or was Epic out of line?