I’ve often said that anything with a cast of unique characters can be turned into a fighting game. Case in point: Among Us Arena, which takes the multi-colored crewmates of the popular Mafia-like and places them in a surprisingly fun one-on-one combat system.
Among Us Arena is wonderfully basic. There’s a light attack, a strong attack, a knife attack, and a gun attack, all of which can be performed standing, crouching, or in the air. And scoring big combos mostly comes down to learning to juggle the opponent. There’s even some rudimentary online functionality so you can pummel your friends.
That said, every character in the 15-fighter roster plays exactly the same, so you’re pretty much just picking your favorite color on the select screen rather than a unique kit. Still, it’s an Among Us fighting game! Check out some of these combos.
This is all the work of one developer known as Starcutter, who released a playable build of Among Us Arena last week and has since dropped numerous updates to adjust the gameplay and fix bugs. They put this project together while working on a larger, more mysterious fighting game project that’s yet to see the light of day.
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like the Among Us devs at Inner Sloth will be taking the Nintendo approach to this spin-off. The official game’s Twitter account seemed excited about the project and even indicated they’d be checking it out themselves, which is just the kind of cross-studio support we love to see.
Among Us Arena is currently available on itch.io free of charge, though I’m sure Starcutter would love to get a donation or two for their hard work. In any case, just be sure to grab the download for your preferred region before jumping online. You’ll want the optimal environment for beating down your fellow impostors.