Fortnite Impostors Review: Not the Among Us Crossover we wanted

Fortnite Impostors: The Good

There’s a few benefits that only Fortnite’s version can offer. You get a suite of emotes that helps you communicate to other players, and you get to wear your favorite outfits you’ve cultivated. It also looks arguably nicer, taking place in Fortnite’s engine.

The dialogue wheel opens up more opportunity to communicate in a safe way, especially since Fortnite’s player base is so spread among demographics. This also has the benefit of allowing players who don’t speak the same language to participate and play with each other.

It’s more accessible for more players, especially for those who don’t have good communication or rhetorical skills.

Fortnite Impostors: The Bad

One thing that Among Us does better than Fortnite’s Impostor Mode is how the game helps players identify each other. In Among Us, players are just colored blobs that are easy to remember and even easier to talk about.

In Fortnite, you get every player’s icon on top of the screen, color coded and with a number. This can be confusing, especially with 10 different skins that change between rounds. It’s even more confusing with multiples of the same skin. Which Rick is sus? I have no clue.

The dialogue wheel’s shortcomings also manifest here. The entire thing is pretty comprehensive, but it comes at the cost of complex, routed menus. Discussing specific players, whether to defend or accuse them, comes in the form of a Mad Libs-style form.

You’re constantly checking the top list of players, and you can never really memorize which player matches which number and which color. When it comes to voting, I had trouble keeping track of who was with whom when and where. The easy-to-parse information that made Among Us so easy to pick up and play is absent.

You select a dialogue template, and then you’re given the player list to fill in the blanks. It’s the best with what they have, given the choice to remove public chats. Dialogue doesn’t seem to have the same flow, and feels clunky and disjointed because of it. You’ll find that you miss questions and answers when you’re looking for the right dialogue options and players.

This makes it easier to let herd mentality take over and vote for the players that everyone else does, since it’s harder to see what’s going on in the first place.

This is my biggest issue with Impostors. Perhaps given more time, players in public matches will be able to communicate more effectively. If you can get nine other friends together, Fortnite’s version has no more flaws than Among Us.

The bottom line

Impostors ultimately gives the same intriguing gameplay that made Among Us so fun at its core, but the confusing dialogue system does not work well with nature of playing this sort of game in a Fortnite setting.

It doesn’t feel like a fresh take on the Among Us formula. It’s a Fortnite reskin of Among Us. And that’s ok, because the core mechanics are represented well enough and can still be an enjoyable experience despite the shortcomings of the communication options.

If Epic Games keeps Impostors around, and I think they should, I have faith they’ll give the improvements it deserves and hopefully evolve the mode to have its own identity.

Is it the best way to play this sort of game? I think Among Us is a better overall package right now, but Fortnite’s take on it is mighty fine.