Social deduction games have been around for quite a while, from tabletop parties and family game nights to Halo custom games and GMod servers. Now with the recent release of Among Us, the genre has gained more traction than ever, bringing friends together before subsequently breaking them apart again out of paranoia and betrayal. The pandemic was a huge driving force in this popularity, seeing as the game revolves around its social aspects and made the perfect excuse for scheduled game nights and casual late-night Discord calls.
The craze around Among Us feels almost reminiscent of snow days spent playing games with friends. When outside circumstances might prevent us from seeing the ones we love, be it snow or sickness, we can always rely on virtual togetherness to get us by. While many players are still going strong on InnerSloth’s one-hit-wonder, some may be looking for new avenues to experience, and inevitably dish out ultimate betrayal. For those future game nights, we have a handful of recommendations.
10 Unfortunate Spacemen
Technically, New Blood’s Unfortunate Spacemen came first. Since it was in early access all the way back in 2016, it’s been a fun ride, combining films like The Thing and Alien with games like Dead Space to make a thrilling inter-spacial social horror experience.
Boasting free-to-play status with tons of optional cosmetics and customizations, Unfortunate Spacemen is a more action-packed take on the genre. After leaving early access, the developers even poked fun at the coincidental official release being so close to Among Us, and copped the URL “AmongUsWithGuns” on launch, which happens to describe the game pretty well.
9 Betrayal At House On The Hill
Anyone familiar with social deduction games has more than likely already heard of Betrayal. Wizards of the Coast proves time and time again that they’re the kings of tabletop gaming, and Betrayal is no exception, proving itself to be one of the best tabletop horrors of all time. Featuring a base game with hundreds of hours of fresh content, the house on the hill will provide players with twist after turn before the final omen is cast and an unsuspecting member of the party suddenly turns against their friends.
Betrayal is a unique take on the formula, as its procedural mechanics make every playthrough just as tense as the first, and unlike most other social deduction games the villain is completely randomized to keep every player in suspense.
8 Town of Salem
Town of Salem is a browser-based classic, taking the helm as one of the most popular lunchroom games of the mid-2010s when laptop-toting kids got together after class between sessions of Minecraft.
Town of Salem is one of many direct adaptations of the Mafia format (see One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Agrou), where every player is given a specific role that comes into play during secret rounds. Almost every version of the game is worth playing, but Salem stands out as the most accessible, with its early versions being free-to-play, and its newest update only costing 5 dollars.
7 Deceit
Deceit is a bit like Dead by Daylight meets Danganronpa, taking a first-person approach to the escape game genre. Waking up alongside 5 others, players are instructed by a mysterious game master to try and escape the mysterious facility they’ve been placed in. The catch? A third of the group has been infected with a deadly virus and has been tasked with picking off the rest of the party before they can escape.
Deceit is a fun exercise in teamwork, as scarce items and limited survivability means infected players won’t be the only traitors, and nobody knows when true terror might strike.
6 In Silence
Another asymmetric horror experience, In Silence brings a unique twist as the creature is almost completely blind, sacrificing a lack of sight for intense hearing abilities.
Human players are tasked with either repairing a vehicle and escaping with it, or gearing up and hunting the monster against horrific odds. The audible aspect of this task makes it so much worse than it sounds, and oftentimes death will strike with one wrong step. While teamwork is a necessity, oftentimes players will find themselves in a tight spot when they must either sacrifice themselves or betray the location of a partner in order to progress.
5 The Thing: Infection At Outpost 31
Among Us’ direct inspiration, The Thing is immortalized as one of the best horror films of all time, treating viewers to a nail-biting venture into paranoia and distrust stemming from a newly discovered hostile alien organism infecting an arctic base.
The board game adaptation, Infection at Outpost 31, is a treat for fans of the film, allowing players to step into the shoes of the research team in the midst of a terrible storm as the infection spreads throughout the group. This is the perfect party game for any family or friend group who finds themselves inconveniently snowed in this winter.
4 Trouble In Terrorist Town
Another internet classic, anyone active on YouTube in the 2010s knows exactly what TTT is, after it gained popularity among lets players and friend groups looking for a more parodical approach to multiplayer games.
TTT is one of many mods for Garry’s Mod, specifically inspired by Mafia as it spawns players in as either traitors or innocents who must kill all of the opposing team without any inclination as to who’s who. TTT employs other tactics, however, providing clever players with ways to deduce the status of their party members, and slippery methods of escape for those less inclined to the peaceful route.
3 Project Winter
Project Winter is a bit of a cuter look at The Longest Dark’s brutal winters, with an added multiplayer element that provides difficult situations not unfamiliar to the survival genre.
A team of 8 must work together to collect materials, repair structures, and brave the wilderness in order to escape with their lives. However, an unidentified group of traitors has infiltrated the group and are actively working against the rest of the team to ensure their safety first. Project Winter has accumulated quite the repertoire of awards and critical praises, titled by Vice in 2019 “the best game about betrayal this year.”
2 SpyParty
SpyParty is a tense competitive multiplayer game focused around a two player cat-and-mouse game. One player takes the role of the Spy, infiltrating a party and accomplishing missions while attempting to remain inconspicuous. The other player picks up a scoped rifle and becomes the Sniper, given a single bullet to attempt to eliminate the Spy before they can achieve their goal.
With the constant pressure placed on both players, SpyParty is a uniquely tense experience that can become all the more frightening when one wrong move can mean life or death, and a single misfire is all it takes to lose the target for good.
1 Barotrauma
Barotrauma presents itself as a 2D co-op submarine simulator, but fails to emphasize the absolute tension that comes out during any given session. Players must work together to fix leaks, fight off monsters, and otherwise continue the progress of their submarine.
The overall gameplay loop of Barotrauma is a bit like FTL meets Europa Report, where players have to manage their submarine’s resources and keep constant tabs on its status. The twist is a genuinely horrific and claustrophobic death at the hands of your crewmates or one of the hostile native aliens that inhabit Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.
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