The popularity of the multiplayer social deduction game Among Us has led to some interesting events over the past week, but the one that stands out for players right now remains a recently exploited hack. Over the past several days, a hack that allowed hackers to spam political messages into Among Us' chat has made some games unplayable. But it seems that Among Us' developer Innersloth believes to have the issue in hand, with two fixes for the hack going out.
Innersloth programmer Forest Willard, known as forte_bass on Twitter, confirmed that the fixes had been issued on Saturday. Two waves of fixes were reported to have been issued. The first was said to fix "impersonation," or how the hacker would appear to be sending messages as one of the other players in a match. The second wave was supposed to fix the chat spam as well as what Willard calls "mass despawn," which led to players experiencing a sort of black room.
It's unclear if the fixes have entirely solved the problem in Among Us. Some replies to Willard's tweet have said that the fix is kicking them from lobbies, the implication being that either the lobby was closed when a hack was detected or that they were removed from the lobby unintentionally. Willard says that this isn't the intended behavior of the fix, but doesn't provide information about what the intended behavior should be.
It's possible that those being kicked from lobbies are participating in the Among Us hack, but are either lying about hacking or are unwilling participants in the hack. It's also possible that the fixes aren't working as intended and that some players are being kicked from lobbies unintentionally. Willard has yet to provide an update since the fixes were issued, so there's no telling exactly what's happening yet.
The road to this situation is still weird to consider. First, US congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar played several matches in an effort to encourage voting, leading to the third-most watched Twitch stream ever. Following that, the hack of Among Us went live. The hack spammed Among Us chat channels with pro-President Donald Trump messaging for days. It's unclear if the hack was done in political retaliation or if it was just an excuse, but obviously is a frustrating situation for any fans of Among Us.
Again, what matters to Among Us players and the developers is that the issue is fixed. Even if the fixes recently issued don't fully solve the problem, Among Us' developers and specifically Forest Willard are doing what they can to get things running smoothly.
Among Us is available now on PC and mobile devices.