3 Free Games Like Among Us You Can Play in a Browser

Someone suggests Among Us. Half the group has it, half doesn’t, and suddenly there is a download, an app store password nobody remembers and a ten minute wait between you and playing anything at all. By the time everyone is in, the moment has gone a bit flat.

The short version: there are three free social deduction games at impostorgames.com that run in any phone browser. Nothing to install, no account to make, 3 to 20 players. One person creates a room, shares a 4-character code or a QR code, and everyone else is in from their own phone. First round starts in about a minute.

What Among Us actually asks of you

Among Us is a very good game and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. It has been running since 2018, it invented the vocabulary half of us now use for this whole genre, and if your group already has it installed you should probably just play that.

But it is a video game, and video games come with setup. Everyone needs the app, on the same version, and everyone needs to get through the update prompt first. It is free on phones and paid on PC and consoles, so “free” depends on what your friends are holding. It is built for 4 to 15 players, which is a problem at both ends if you are three people or seventeen. And a round is a proper sit-down session rather than something you squeeze in before the food arrives.

None of that matters when your group is already set up. All of it matters when you are standing in someone’s kitchen with six people, six different phones and about twenty minutes.

The honest comparison

What you give up

Worth saying plainly, because a comparison page that only lists its own strengths is not much use to anyone.

• There is no spaceship. No map, no tasks, no vents, no little bean characters.
• There is no progression, no cosmetics, nothing to unlock.
• These are built for people who can see or hear each other. They work fine over a video call, but they are not designed for playing with strangers on the internet.

What survives is the part most people are actually there for: one person is lying, everyone is watching everyone else, and the accusations start about ninety seconds in.

Which of the three to play

They are all the same shape underneath. Everyone gets something except one person, who gets something slightly different and has to bluff their way through. What changes is what your group has to work with.

The other names people use for this

Among Us is the reference point most people reach for, but it is not the only one, and the game your group is half-remembering might be one of these instead.

• Spyfall. Everyone knows the location except the spy, who has to work it out from what people say. Closest to our word game.
• Fake Artist Goes to New York. The drawing one. Everyone draws the same thing except the fake artist. That is our draw game almost exactly.
• Undercover, sometimes sold as Werewords or Insider. Another name for the word version.
• Werewolf and Mafia. The ancestors of all of it. Bigger groups, a moderator, and people getting eliminated round by round. We do not have this one.

The umbrella term, if you want the one that turns up in reviews, is social deduction. One player has secret information and a reason to lie about it, and the rest of the group has to work out who.

If you are not tied to the Among Us comparison and just want something to play tonight, the wider list of free online party games covers what each of the three needs and which to start with.

Common questions

Written and maintained by the people who build Impostor Games. We have tried to describe Among Us accurately rather than flatteringly for us. If something here is out of date, tell us from the site and we will fix it.