The "Among Us" clone app has surged in popularity in China Apple App Store, overtaking the long reigning titles from Tencent, the "Honour of Kings" and "Peacekeeper Elite." It has soon become the most downloaded free game in China, according to Game Spot.
In the App Store, the game is officially titled "狼人之间" but is more popularly known as "Werewolf Among Us." As of Monday, November 2, the game was downloaded 116,000 times, much higher than Tencent's Honour of Kings with 112,000 and Peacekeeper Elite with 111,000 downloads, based on the app tracking firm Qimai Data.
According to South China Morning Post, Shenzhen Youliang Technology developed the game, which already had 478,000 downloads since its launch on October 28. It is said to be a rip-off of Innersloth's popular game, Among Us.
'Werewolf Among Us' Specs
Shenzhen Youliang Technology Co., Ltd. developed the "Werewolf Among Us" as a multiplayer game app. It can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store with 131.6 MB file size. It is compatible for devices running with iOS 9.0 or higher such as iPhone 5S and newer models as well as iPad Air, iPad mini 2, iPad Pro, and iPad (6th generation and up). It is suitable for 4 years old and up.
The game play involves exploring a mysterious castle and challenging magical creatures. Unlike in Among Us when crewmembers need to find and kill the impostors, in this China version, they are called werewolves. Players collect clues and unlock more poses.
Read also: Ever Wonder Where 'Among Us' Impostors Come From? Here's a Theory and Why They Have Kill-Cooldown
'Among Us' Chinese versions
The intellectual property law in China mainly protects the story, art, and characters of a game, but not the gameplay. This has led to multiple reskinned or video game clones worldwide. This is especially common in China as many Western games are not available.
"Among Us" was launched in June 2018, although it only recently became popular during the coronavirus pandemic. It is free to play on mobile and PC and its developer Innersloth, the game has been downloaded for more than 100 million times across the world. About 60 million users are actively playing it in September. Players are assigned as either impostors who sabotage or murder crewmates or crewmates who try to identify the impostors.
Even the game is not available in Chinese, it has already been downloaded 885,000 times and now the 10th most downloaded in China. "'Among Us' is actually very effective in attracting downloads," said Zheng Jintiao, co-founder of GamerBoom, an online media outlet. Yet, the language barrier has reduced the user experience of Chinese gamers.
Thus, a lot of copycats emerged. Aside from "Werewolf Among Us," which is set in a medieval castle, another popular rip-off is Space Kill, a mobile game created by Beijing Renzhi Information Technology. It has already been downloaded for over 251,000 times on iOS and ranks 11th under the free entertainment category in App Store.
Zheng noted that these rip-off "Among Us" games will continue to get downloads regardless how terrible they may be as long as there is a Chinese language option. "I think this kind of games won't be copied by big companies because they are hard to monetise in China," Zheng added.
Related article: 'Among Us' Map Guide: Learn the Locations and Kill Zones (Skeld, Polus, and Mira HQ)
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Written by CJ Robles
