Between Us, a murder mystery in space, is the latest multi-million dollar craze in video games

(CNN)

Since people stay home all over the world, My latest favorite hobby It is a 2018 murder mystery game that takes place in space called Between Us.

The immense popularity of the game prompted its developers to announce Thursday that it is canceling a sequel to the game, to focus better on increasing the current version. The game has arrived Over a million players On September 3 and it had grown to over 3.5 million concurrent users worldwide by Friday.

“We canceled Part Two because we saw the opportunity to give back to players a little faster than creating a new, better version,” Forrest Willard, a developer at InnerSloth, who makes it between us, told CNN Business. “It’ll be more action in the long run, but we’re excited for players to update the game, and suddenly there’s a new feature or a new map that opens up new experiences.”

Between us is based on another social opponent Multiplayer Like the mafia where a group of innocent people live their daily lives while murderers, who conceal their identities, commit murders at night. The group must identify the culprit and get rid of the fraudsters before they lose their majority.

InnerSloth, a company of three people, was released with us in 2018. Willard is a programmer and takes over the business. It didn’t cause much fanfare at the time, although it has grown in popularity in countries like Korea and Brazil. The game did not take off in the United States until this summer, when A. Twitch streamer With a fan base of 2.8 million viewers they started playing it.

Between Us costs $ 5 on Steam PC game store or the standalone Itch.io store, and it’s free with ads on mobile. Players can make additional purchases to decorate and customize their in-game characters. InnerSloth declined to comment on the sales figures and total revenue.

The game requires four to 10 players, who are randomly assigned to the roles of either a fellow crewmate or a charlatan. There is always more crew than scammers to start with. Throughout the game, the crew members attempt to complete their missions and the crooks try to kill the crew and sabotage the spaceship without getting caught.

Between Us includes a lot of lies, accusations, and angry denials – a perfect recipe for engaging with social media. It is played by PewDiePie, YouTube’s biggest single maker, as well as rapper and singer Soulja Boy.

Between Us is not the only indie game to be launched this year. Fall Guys is A light hearted battle royale The players are Jelly Beans trying to weave their way through mazes, jumping on challenges and other activities, to become the best of the 60 players. It sold more than 7 million copies on the Steam Store within a month of its August launch.

All the people raise the question, what is next among us? InnerSloth developers know they must build on their success and keep players engaged. Experts say that their decision to trim a second part made sense.

“At this point, Part Two will end up dividing the audience, and it is best to keep participation high in the current game and increase revenue generation through in-game purchases,” said Cassia Curran, a consultant at Wings Interactive, a fund that invests in various games.

Innersloth developer, Willard said, the team plans to add features to between us including the ability to add friends, color blindness mode and a way to customize the controls.

He said, “These just make the game easier for people to have fun over and over.”