This week, Epic Games introduced the new Impostors mode for Fortnite. If the mode’s name sounds familiar, that’s because Epic clearly drew inspiration from Among Us. Turns out, it’s not just the name. InnerSloth also found a lot of similarities between the original map of their game and the Impostors map in the famous battle royale.
Fortnite Impostors is a 10-player mode, where 8 agents defend the bridge while 2 impostors try to destroy it. However, it wasn’t the Among Us-inspired mechanics or the mode itself that caused controversy.
InnerSloth developer Gary Porter noted on Twitter that the new map in Fortnite was quite similar to The Skield, which is the original map of Among Us. “It’s okay though, they flipped Electrical and Medbay and connected Security to Cafeteria,” he wrote.
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
In replies to Porter’s thread, user Stephen Parker highlighted parts of these two maps to show how similar they are. “It’s not ‘obvious’, the room might have different points but you can’t look at this and think it’s totally different,” Parker wrote, adding that the layout is almost identical.
Some people seem like can’t see the similarity, so here it is. It’s not “obvious”, the room might have different points but you can’t look at this and think it’s totally different. pic.twitter.com/3IWbpmUf60
— Stephen N. Parker (@PeterNStrange) August 17, 2021
“It wouldn’t be such a big deal if it wasn’t called Impostors and if so many other things weren’t copied,” Porter later explained.
If I had known my tweet would get seen by so many I would have elaborated more. It wouldn’t be such a big deal if it wasn’t called Impostors and if so many other things weren’t copied – I just thought it was funny that the map layout is also very similar. (1/2)
— Gary Porter (@supergarydeluxe) August 17, 2021
InnerSloth co-founder Marcus Bromander also joined the discussion. Although the studio didn’t patent any of the Among Us mechanics, situations like that might be harmful for the games industry in general. “Is it really that hard to put 10% more effort into putting your own spin on it though?” he asked.
Among Us community director Victoria Tran said that it would have been great to collaborate with Epic Games and create something together. “Like game mechanics fine, those shouldn’t be gatekept, but at the very least even different themes or terminology makes things more interesting?” she wrote.
it would’ve been really, really cool to collab haha.
just sad indie hours rn.
— Victoria Tran 🧋 (@TheVTran) August 17, 2021