Innersloth almost put Among Us to rest in 2019
"We were basically done with it."
A new interview with Innersloth co-founder Marcus Bromander reveals just how close the team came to moving on from Among Us.
Bromander guested on the podcast Visionaries to discuss Among Us' rise in popularity, the impact it had on Innersloth, and what the company's next plans are.
Among Us first released in 2018 but didn't see mainstream popularity until 2020. During that time, Bromander stated that he, along with fellow co-founder Forrest Willard and mutual friend Amy Liu, were working full-time on Among Us.
The small sales numbers for the game meant it was not profitable. Bromander recalled the team had about two years of financial "runway" where they could continue working on making games without making any money.
Visionaries host Jacob Wolf asked Bromander how close they had come to sunsetting Among Us, something which Willard had previously alluded to in an interview with Kotaku.
"We stuck with Among Us a lot longer than we probably should have from a pure business standpoint. We tried to quit and should have quit several times."
Bromander revealed that the team was ready to move on in 2019, just after they had released the third map for the game.
"We'd done enough bug fixes that the game functioned and we were like alright, that's it. No more, time to work on something else."
Bromander had been working on The Henry Stickmin Collection in parallel with Among Us, which he hoped would net some income to sustain future projects, whilst Willard and Liu began prototyping other game ideas.
When Among Us blew up in popularity, they decided to refocus their efforts towards the game, weighing up between making a sequel or updating "the game everybody is already playing". Ultimately, they opted to continue working on Among Us, adding more updates and improvements to the game.
Since then, Innersloth has expanded from three to 17 people. Bromander revealed the studio has received acquisition offers which have all been turned down, as they want to remain as independent as possible and retain all creative control over their work.
Plenty of new content has been added to Among Us since its surge in popularity and the game is still going strong, with the latest developer log teasing what to expect next, including an hide 'n' seek mode.