Among Us developers broke Geneva Convention

The developers behind Among Us have said they had to update the game when it started getting popular due to a Geneva Convention violation.

InnerSloth, the developer behind the hit social deduction game Among Us, has said that it had to update the game once it started getting attention due to a violation of the Geneva Conventions Act.

Among Us is a social deduction game that was first released in 2018 that has players attempt to complete tasks on a spaceship while one or more players, called ‘impostors’, try to sabotage their efforts. The aim of the game is for the ‘good’ players to complete their tasks, or figure out who the impostors are, while the impostors are tasked with eliminating all the good players.

The game was released to little fanfare, but became an overnight sensation in 2020 following a huge influx of players when Twitch streamers started showcasing it on stream. Initially only available on PC and smartphones, the game has since been released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox consoles, attracting over 500 million players in its 5 years on the market.

Developer InnerSloth recently took to Twitter to share a story about the early days of the game, where it admitted that once the game started getting popular, it had to make a change to one of the game’s backgrounds.

The MedBay area in the game’s primary map had used a red cross to signify the medical nature of the area, but players had pointed out to the developers that using the red cross was actually a violation of the Geneva Convention. InnerSloth changed the cross to be blue, instead, making the game compliant with international law.

fun fact: after the game got big in 2020 we had to change the colour of the MedBay cross because we apparently violated the Geneva Conventions Act by making it red???? oops pic.twitter.com/7Idvv1sglu

— Among Us (@AmongUsGame) February 1, 2023

Among Us joins a long list of games that have been caught out using the symbol, including Halo, which replaced the symbol on its med packs with a red ‘H’. Another indie game that was forced to change it was Prison Architect, after the developers for that game received a notice from the British Red Cross (thanks PC Gamer).

“My immediate reason for writing is that it has been brought to our attention that in your game ‘Prison Architect’ a red cross emblem is displayed on vehicles,” the notice to Prison Architect developer Introversion Software read, “Those responsible may be unaware that use of the red cross emblem is restricted under the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims of 12 August 1949, and that unauthorised use of this sign in the United Kingdom is an offence under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957”.

Among Us recently released a new game mode called Hide N Seek. Picture: InnerSloth

In other indie game news, the creator of hit game Vampire Survivors recently said that he was surprised by the success of the game, saying that he had “no idea” why the game was so popular. The game has attracted millions of players, despite its simple graphics.

Closer to home, an award-winning Aussie indie game was announced to be getting a big update this year. Cult of the Lamb, developed by Melbourne-based Massive Monster, won the Golden Joystick award for Best Indie Game last year.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.