Among Us was originally named "Space Mafia".The idea for the concept was originally given by Marcus Bromander, cofounder of Innersloth, who had played Mafia since he was a kid. However, it was completely different from the final version of the game. Players had to run around the ship all the time and do tasks to prevent impostors from winning, so gameplay in the early version was "super sweaty."

In final version Crewmate's goal is to identify impostors, vote them off and do the task that are placed on the map. The impostor, in their turn, secretly plan to sabotage and eliminate cremates before they would be able to complete all the tasks. Those players who are suspected of being impostors are expelled from the team by majority of their cremates.