Although Among Us was originally released in 2018, the game really blew up in 2020 and as a result, it had to make a change to avoid violating the Geneva Conventions Act. Games are occasionally banned in certain countries for violating their rules in some way or another, but Among Us had to make a small change just to prevent a violation of the long-standing law.Celebrating the history of Among Us, Innersloth recently shared a "fun fact" about the multiplayer game that was a consequence of it finally finding success in 2020. While it didn't kick off to wide acclaim in 2018, Innersloth continued to support Among Us until it eventually found a broad audience and expanded to other platforms. Among Us continues to get updated to this day on various platforms, but this adjustment was necessary simply to dodge potential legal ramifications in the UK.According to Innersloth, the developers had to change the cross in MedBay from red to blue because it was in violation of the Geneva Conventions Act by using the crimson color. In using the red cross, Among Us had broken the law that prohibits the use of the emblem by anyone except for the International Committee of the Red Cross. To emphasize the differences made by changing the Among Us Skeld map, Innersloth shares an image that showed two versions of the familiar location, one side fittingly having the blue icon, and the other showing what it had been before the change was implemented through a patch.
While some Among Us fans may not have noticed the MedBay symbol changing from red to blue, other eagle-eyed players may have caught the small detail in the 2020 patch notes. Among Us has undergone several changes over the years through regular updates that bring in new maps, expanded the size of player lobbies, add fresh colors to the rotation, and improve accessibility settings. Because developers were able to avoid legal ramifications, Among Us VR has since been released and Innersloth continues to adjust major and minor issues through patches as the community expands.
Even though some modern games like Subnautica and Among Us have tried to implement the red plus icon, the developers have been notified by authorities as other studios have in the past. There are many retro games that have used the red cross symbol in the past like Doom, Halo: Combat Evolved, and Wolfenstein, but they have been modernized in recent ports to also follow the Geneva Conventions Act in order to maintain the red cross' exclusivity to the organization of the same name.
Among Us is available now for mobile, Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
