Does Fortnite's New Imposter Mode Take Among Us 'Inspiration' Too Far?

3 years ago 347

Epic Games revealed a caller impermanent mode for Fortnite, a whodunnit acquisition that is drafting a batch of attraction for the incorrect reasons. In galore instances, the gaming assemblage volition liken an acquisition similar this to Among Us owed to the indie game's rocket into popularity implicit the past year. But does Fortnite's caller mode, called Imposter, person 1 excessively galore similarities to beryllium a coincidence? It seems that way, and the folks down Among Us consciousness the same. 

Fortnite has been enactment to galore crossovers successful the past, usually arsenic a collaborative acquisition betwixt Epic Games and different company. However, InnerSloth was not included successful the speech astir Fortnite's Imposter mode, which — by the mode — is what the murderer successful Among Us is called. When the caller mode was announced, the Among Us comparisons instantly began, but it wasn't until I dove successful deeper that I realized this was much than elemental inspiration; it truly is an unofficial crossover. The occupation with it being unofficial is that InnerSloth, which is simply a tiny indie team, successful nary mode benefits from the caller Fortnite mode, whereas Epic Games has everything to gain. At slightest they did until the Among Us squad started to talk out. 

Victoria Chan is the assemblage manager for the Among Us game, and she took to Twitter to stock her disappointment with the caller Imposter mode. "It would person been really, truly chill to collab here, haha," she said in a Tweet. "Just bittersweet indie hours rn." She added, "Like crippled mechanics fine, those shouldn't beryllium gatekept, but astatine the precise least, adjacent antithetic themes oregon terminology makes things much interesting?" 

Among Us Unity programmer Gary Porter added to the speech with a nonstop examination to the representation successful Fortnite's Imposter mode and the Skeld representation successful the indie game. The 2 stock utmost similarities, arsenic seen above. "I haven't been tweeting overmuch precocious due to the fact that I've been moving truthful hard connected upcoming contented for Among Us," helium shared successful the thread. "So it feels weird to beryllium compelled to tweet again due to the fact that of worldly similar [Fortnite]." He added, "It's okay, though. They flipped electrical and medbay and connected information to the cafeteria. I wasn't adjacent astir for the improvement of Skeld, and I'm inactive benignant of offended." 

Marcus "Puff" Bromander, the Co-founder of InnerSloth, added to the speech saying that they didn't patent Among Us mechanics due to the fact that "I don't deliberation that leads to a steadfast crippled industry" but that it's not that hard to enactment your ain rotation connected thing if inspired by different game. "At the extremity of the day, I'm conscionable gonna support making the games I wanna make. Everything other is conscionable noise." 

This isn't the archetypal clip Fortnite has travel nether occurrence for being a small excessively "inspired" by different content, including lawsuits centering astir emotes that took from fashionable popular civilization references. With the sanction of the caller mode itself being Imposter, the similarities betwixt the 2 maps, and the full mode the Imposter Mode was presented to the public, it's hard to contradict that it each points towards Epic Games making a captious misstep erstwhile being "inspired" by different properties. Indie studios person capable barriers to cross, from backing to assets support, truthful erstwhile a mega-giant similar Epic Games makes a determination similar this, it's hard and harmful to the workplace and different indie teams retired there. 


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