Among Us Devs Take Notice Of Fortnite's New Impostor Mode

Nearly every video game can trace its DNA to something that came earlier. Fortnite is a battle royale, which means it owes a debt to PUBG, H1Z1, and the other games in that genre that came before it. Among Us took inspiration from party games like Mafia, Werewolf, and Secret Hitler, so it's hardly a 100% new idea either. The functionally similar Unfortunate Spacemen also preceded it into the digital realm by a couple of years, but nobody would accuse those two games of being exact duplicates.

But when Fortnite released its "Impostor Mode" into the wild yesterday, it did come off as seeming extremely similar to the game du jour of backstabbing and betrayal -- and that's brought out a few murmurs from its developers.

Kotaku has taken note of several comments about Fortnite's new mode from the team at Innersloth. These include Community Director Victoria Tran, who said that "it would've been really, really cool to collab haha" and Programmer Gary Porter, who shared side-by-side images of Fortnite's Loop Control and Among Us's Skeld maps:

It's okay tho they flipped electrical and medbay and connected security to the cafeteria. pic.twitter.com/XXVsJPpiXn

— Gary Porter (@supergarydeluxe) August 17, 2021

(Personally, I think that one's a bit of a stretch -- they're both rooms with corridors, sure, but I don't think one looks like a near-exact copy of the other.)

Even Innersloth co-founder Marcus "Puff" Bromander has chimed in:

We didn't patent the Among Us mechanics. I don't think that leads to a healthy game industry. Is it really that hard to put 10% more effort into putting your own spin on it though?

— Puff (@PuffballsUnited) August 17, 2021

Fortnite isn't the first game to try and glom onto the meteoric rise of Among Us, but it's certainly the highest-profile case. And it's unlikely that Innersloth would be able to prove any kind of damages in court, if it was so inclined to go that route. Then again, maybe this is the perfect time to strike, while Epic's lawyers are distracted ...