Impostor

* **Impostor**
* Guide

* Title card
* Role reveal
* Logo

The **Impostor** is one of the two primary roles in *Among Us*. Their goal is to kill the majority of the Crewmates or cause a critical Sabotage that the Crewmates fail to fix to win.

## Goals

The primary goal of The Impostor is to kill enough Crewmates to have an equal amount of Impostors and Crewmates before all tasks are completed.

All Impostors cannot complete any tasks; however, they are given a fake task list as general guidance on feigning a Crewmate's behavior and blending in with them. Additionally, Impostors have the ability to Sabotage to force Crewmates to resolve issues, with some killing all Crewmates if not resolved in time. This ability can be used in many different ways, such as luring Crewmates away from a dead body or concealing a kill.

There are two ways for Impostors to win:

* Crewmates being eliminated by leaving, being killed, or being ejected until they no longer have a voting majority (one Crewmate per Impostor left).
* Enacting a critical Sabotage that is not resolved in time.

Impostors primarily eliminate Crewmates through a combination of killing them during gameplay and manipulating or confusing the Crew into ejecting innocent players. Crewmates leaving, disconnecting, or being kicked from the game also contribute towards this goal.

## Probability of Being An Impostor

Depending on the game options, there can be one to three Impostors in a game. Impostors are randomly chosen when the game begins. Therefore, every player has an equal chance to be The Impostor. This chance does not change regardless of any player's record as An Impostor or Crewmate or their color; it is consistently random between all players.

If there are still other Impostors remaining after one is ejected, that Impostor will become a ghost. However, if no Impostors remain alive, the Crew wins immediately. Ghost impostors can still Sabotage the map to help their fellow Impostors win, but they cannot kill, talk with other living Impostors, vent, or vote.

## Abilities

* An Impostor killing a Crewmate by snapping their neck.
* An Impostor killing a Crewmate by stabbing them with a knife.
* An Impostor killing a Crewmate by shooting them with a gun.
* An Impostor killing a Crewmate by impaling them with their tongue.
* An Impostor killing a Crewmate by disintegrating them with a laser.
1/5
### Kill

*Main article: Kill*
Purple has a red highlight around them, indicating that they are close enough to be killed.The Kill button.
Impostors can kill Crewmates. Killing a Crewmate leaves a dead body in the spot they were killed, and the Crewmate turns into a ghost. Kills have a cooldown of 10–60 seconds and a kill distance of either short, normal, or long, depending on the game's options.

In the view of An Impostor, when killing someone, the player's body is broken in half, where after a few seconds they fall on the ground, exposing their bone. As the kill occurs, The Impostor will teleport to the player in a flurry of gray scribbles, and the body will collapse after a few seconds. In the Crewmate victim's view, while their body falls to the ground, an animation is shown which can appear in different ways: either the Crewmate is shot, stabbed several times, impaled by The Impostor's tongue, has their neck snapped, or is shot by The Impostor's laser (the last animation will only play if The Impostor is wearing the Right Hand Man skin).

The kill cooldown is shortened to 10 seconds on the first round, before any emergency meetings, and set to the standard cooldown time after they have killed someone or an emergency meeting is called.

The kill cooldown pauses while The Impostor is using one of the following:

* A vent
* Security cameras
* Admin map
* Emergency button
* Doorlog
* Vitals
* Resolving Sabotages, including Door Sabotage
* Customize menu (Practice)
* A ladder
* The moving platform

Killing also forces The Impostor to move instantaneously to the Crewmate's location, essentially teleporting there, leaving a faint trail of their presence in their previous location. The teleport distance will vary with the kill range in Options.

### Sabotage

*Main article: Sabotage*

An Impostor can Sabotage, which creates a problem that Crewmates must either wait out, ignore, or fix. Impostors can fix their Sabotage, which may help them avoid suspicion. Impostors that are ghosts can also Sabotage. On The Skeld and Polus, Impostors can close doors to hinder player movement or conceal suspicious activity. Ghosts cannot fix Sabotages.

Reactor Meltdown, Oxygen Depleted, Reset Seismic Stabilizers, and Avert Crash Course are Sabotages that, if left unfixed, will result in an instant win for The Impostors. Fix Lights or Comms Sabotaged are Sabotages that will not result in a win, but will make it harder for Crewmates to perform objectives or identify Impostors. Impostors can utilize Sabotages to create opportunities to make plays or to distract the Crew. Sabotages also prevent the emergency button being used, except for Door Sabotage.

### Vent

*Main article: Vent*

Impostors can hide in vents. Vents allow Impostors to either hide or quickly move around the map. The Impostor can use a vent when close enough to any one nearby. However, hiding in a vent pauses both kill and Sabotage cooldowns until The Impostor exits the vent. The Admin map can still detect Impostors hiding in a room's vents.

### Report

*Main article: Report*

When a player is near a dead body, the report button becomes usable. Like the Crew, Impostors can use this ability to report dead bodies anywhere. When reporting, this starts an emergency meeting, where Crewmates can discuss who The Impostor is. Impostors can use the report button to gain trust or for various other reasons.

### Use

*Main article: Use*

Impostors also have the Use ability that allows them to interact with the emergency button, the Admin map, Security cameras, Vitals, and Doorlog. The Use ability can also be used by Impostors to resolve Sabotages.

## Shapeshifter

*Main article: Shapeshifter*
The Shapeshifter is a variant of The Impostor role. Shapeshifters have the same goals and the same abilities as regular Impostors in addition to a new ability: they can transform into other Crewmates, gaining the same appearance, cosmetics, and name as the Crewmate they transformed into.

### Shift

*Main article: Shift*
Shapeshifters can Shift into other Crewmates so other Crewmates can get confused if they are The Impostor or not.

## Seeker

*Main article: Hide n Seek*
The Impostor is also known as the Seeker in the Hide n Seek game mode. Their goal is to kill all of the Crewmates before the time runs out. They cannot Vent and do not have skins. If they are wearing any hat, an additional animation will show them putting it on before the hiding countdown ends at the start of the game.

## Storyline

According to the original Innersloth site, The Impostor is an alien and a "parasitic shapeshifter". It is further implied from the following reasons:

* One of The Impostor's attacks depicts them opening their rather large mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, then impaling the targeted Crewmate's head with their spear-like tongue, killing them. This also implies that the spacesuit and other cosmetics worn by Impostors are also a part of their organic bodies, unlike the Crewmates, whose hats fall off when killed.
* Another attack is The Impostor snapping the Crewmate's neck, implying that Impostors are very strong.
	+ However, it only takes two Crewmates to eject An Impostor, which means that Impostors are only strong enough to take down one Crewmate at a time.
* The Impostor(s) will win if the oxygen is depleted or the Reactor is sabotaged. It is left ambiguous whether the Impostor(s) actually survive such an outcome, or if they are instead claiming victory through a suicide mission.
* If recommended settings are enabled in the options, Crewmates will have x1 vision, and Impostors have x1.5, meaning they have better sight. They also have night vision, as they aren't affected by Fix Lights or the darkroom in Main Hall.
* Running Submit Scan at MedBay is perhaps the most well-known way of proving oneself as a Crewmate, implying that The Impostor has a different anatomy and does not wish to reveal this.
* Impostors also appear to have the same heart rate as Crewmates, as shown by Vitals' readings on Polus and The Airship.

## Trivia

* If one is An Impostor, they can see the other Impostors' names in red.
	+ This is to allow for less confusion for The Impostors.
	+ Due to a bug, while the dead bodies are revealed in an emergency meeting that An Impostor called, other Impostors see the name as white.
	+ The names also appear red in The Impostors' victory screen.
* Impostors are left-handed, as their victims are shown if stabbed or shot.
* On Polus, The Impostor will give a thumbs up if they are voted off and dropped into the lava. This is a reference from the 1991 movie *Terminator 2: Judgment Day*.
* During game development, The Impostors used to be called "Infected".
	+ This is likely a reference to the fact that they are "parasitic alien shapeshifters".
* Originally, if An Impostor had Submit Scan in their fake tasks list, a scan could be submitted. However, this was most likely changed for being too overpowered and misleading.
	+ When An Impostor is in Practice mode, the interface on the 'Task Tester 2000' will show the Submit Scan task as selected, even though it is not displayed in the "fake tasks" list. This was patched in a later update.
* Previously, The Impostor's kill cooldown could count down even while inside a vent, viewing Security, Doorlog, Vitals, et cetera. However, this was later changed for game balancing reasons.
* In the majority of mentions in the How to Play section, "the" and "an" are not capitalized when preceding "Impostor". Only page 8 capitalizes "The" and does so for both "The Impostor" and "The Crew".
* In a tweet on the @AmongUsGame Twitter account, it has been revealed that Impostors win 57.69% of the times, while Crewmates only win 42.31% of the time.
	+ This statistic may have changed due to lobby size increasing to 15 players since the tweet.
* If An Impostor or all Impostors disconnected, a screen and sound would play to the Crewmates, with the message: "Impostor Disconnected" and a sound effect playing, indicating a stalemate. This sound and screen were subsequently removed, but were reinstated in version 2022.12.8.
	+ Likewise, a screen with the message: "Most Crewmates Disconnected", with the same sound effect, would play if most Crewmates disconnected. This screen would even display who The Impostors were. Since sometime in 2019, however, the game grants Impostors the victory instead of showing this screen.
* Originally Impostors could do tasks wrong to hinder the Crewmates.
* In an older version of *Among Us*, the title cards for both Impostors and Crewmates were in sentence case. It was changed to be in all capital letters in a later update.
* In some promotional artwork, as well as the Sabotage and Vent icons, Impostors are depicted as having a red glint in their visor. This is never seen on a character in-game.
* In the image files, graphics for the seeker venting can be found even though venting is normally disabled for Seekers.

## Gallery

The icon for Impostors in the Host screen.The screen shown when The Impostors win.An Impostor's body opens during the tongue kill animation.An Impostor killing a Crewmate shown in How to PlayA collection of kill assets used when An Impostor kills a Crewmate from the Crewmate's perspective.Blue depicted as An Impostor in a promotional banner.Brown depicted as An Impostor in 17th place in a promotional poster showing each color's popularity.Yellow depicted as An Impostor in promotional artwork for the Xbox edition.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Among Us". *Innersloth (archived)*. Retrieved November 9, 2020.
2. ↑ "Crewmate and Impostor win percentage". *Twitter, @AmongUsGame*. December 4, 2020. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
3. ↑ "Among Us dev recounts how the game took flight, including early game ideas". *News - Nintendo*. January 12, 2021. Retrieved December 10, 2022.