Innersloth’s addictive social deduction game, Among Us, took the world by storm when it grew in popularity in 2020. In 2022, it’s still as popular as ever, and players of all ages can enjoy this fun and simple game. But while everyone knows how to play as a Crewmate or Impostor, too few people discredit the experience of being a Ghost.
There’s quite a lot to it, and it can be a fulfilling way to play. I’ve played hundreds of rounds of Among Us and naturally have ended up as a Ghost on a fair few occasions. In this Among Us Ghost guide, I’ll explain everything you need to know about becoming a Ghost and what you can do when you are one.
Bottom Line Up Front
Dying and becoming a Ghost doesn’t have to be the end of your game when playing Among Us. Make sure to still participate by doing your tasks, sabotaging (if you’re Impostor), and taking advantage of the Guardian Angel role if you have it.
How Do You Become a Ghost?
Nobody starts out sa Ghost; you’ll always be either a Crewmate or an Impostor when you start the first round. Some players may also have an additional role, but ultimately they’ll fall into one of those two categories.
Interestingly, you keep your Crewmate or Impostor role even after becoming a Ghost, which gives you an incentive to keep playing to the best of your ability. If your team wins, it’ll still count as a victory even if you were dead.
There are two ways to become a Ghost. The first is to be killed by an Impostor. If you’re a Crewmate and an Impostor chooses you as a target, your dead body will fall to the floor, and you will immediately become a Ghost. This happens instantaneously in the same round.
The second way is if you get voted out during a meeting. This can happen to either an innocent Crewmate who’s been framed or to a guilty Impostor. If you get voted out, you’ll no longer be able to play the next round as usual. However, just like players who die, you become a Ghost. Instead of this happening immediately, it happens at the start of the next round, after you’ve been ejected at the end of the meeting.
What is a Ghost in Among Us?
So, now that you know how you become a Ghost, what exactly does that mean? What’s the difference between a Ghost and a regular player? Well, first and foremost, you’ll become invisible to all the living players. This is regardless of whether they’re on the same side as you or not. However, you’ll be able to see all the other Ghosts, and they’ll be able to see you. Again, this doesn’t matter whether you’re an Impostor or a Crewmate.
The coolest thing about being a Ghost is that you move at a vastly increased speed. This is unaffected by the player speed settings of the lobby. As you are no longer a living player, you will default to the standard Ghost speed settings. This means you can easily move to the other side of the map fast and makes it more convenient if you’re trying to watch particular players.
You can also ignore any physical boundaries. As you are no longer a living player, you no longer have a corporeal presence. This means that you can walk through walls. Or rather, float through walls, as Ghosts don’t have legs. Instead, you have a kind of wavy tail; it looks very ghostly. You keep the same color you had before, but you lose any cosmetic items you were wearing, and you also become semi-transparent.
What Can a Ghost Do?
Aside from moving faster and passing through walls, I’m sure you’re wondering what you can do as a Ghost. Never fear; I’m here to fill you in on the joys of life after death. Among Us is one of the very few games that offers rewarding play when you’re dead.
Most games have you either wait until the next round or spectate other players at best. But with this one, you’re still able to enjoy playing, just in a different way. I won’t lie, it’s not as fun as being alive, but it’s also not boring either.
Obviously, for some players, they have fun just floating around watching everyone else, and that’s perfectly valid. However, as this is a guide, I will talk you through the in-game actions that you can take.
Do Tasks
This is the main one. You’re still considered a Crewmate as long as you stay in the lobby. As such, your tasks still count towards the overall taskbar. Don’t assume that just because you’re dead, doing tasks doesn’t matter anymore because that couldn’t be further from the truth.
It’s quite the opposite. I don’t know how many games I’ve played where the Crewmates have been so close to winning but have lost because they were killed waiting for an AFK (inactive) Ghost to do their tasks.
You can use the added speed and ability to move through walls to your advantage. Look at your task list and see where all your tasks are. That way, you can plan the quickest route. I like to try and speedrun my remaining tasks if I ever die and become a Ghost.
Figuring out the best order to finish them in can be a fun personal challenge. It’s also great that you don’t have to worry about being killed because you’re already dead. You can go into Electrical all alone and not have to think about the possibility of an Impostor sneaking up behind you. It’s very freeing.
You should also consider the timing of your tasks. For example, if you’ve got something long like Upload, maybe don’t attempt to start it if you suspect that there’s about to be a kill. As Ghost, you have a better view of the rest of the map as you can easily move across it, so if you’ve seen a Crewmate going into a room with an Impostor, you can expect that there’s probably about to be a body reported.
Try and get through your tasks as quickly as possible once you become a Ghost. That way, there’s no risk of forgetting you haven’t done them. After that, you can either float around and have fun or play detective. Perhaps you don’t enjoy being a Ghost, in which case you can put your phone down once you’ve finished your tasks and go make yourself a cup of coffee or something.
Continue reading our comprehensive Among Us tasks guide.
Play Detective
I like doing this, even though I usually already have a good idea of who the Impostor is by the time I die. Like doing your tasks, this activity only applies to Ghosts who are also Crewmates, so if you’re an Impostor, you can skip straight to the Sabotage subheading.
Seeing as you’re a Ghost and can’t communicate with living players, there’s not technically much purpose to this, but it’s still a fun way to continue playing. It’s also useful if you’re a Guardian Angel or someone else in your lobby.
If you’ve died by being killed rather than being ejected, you’ll already know who one of the Impostors is. However, since the introduction of roles, there’s always a chance that it was a shapeshifter who killed you.
In that situation, even in the death animation, they’ll still show as the player they’re pretending to be. So if you’re in a lobby with shapeshifters, your first port of call should be following the person who you saw kill you to figure out if they were guilty or not.
Essentially, you’re trying to figure out who the Impostors are without being told by the other players or Ghosts. It’s fun to figure it out for yourself, and being a Ghost gives you an extra advantage in this department. As the Impostors can’t see you, they’re more likely to vent or kill whilst you’re watching them. So if you’re sus of someone, you can follow them without their knowledge and see if they do anything incriminatory.
Playing detective usually doesn’t take more than a couple of rounds, but it’s an enjoyable way to kill time. It can also be beneficial for you to know that you can follow the Impostors in future rounds and get a front-row seat to any shenanigans they get up to. It’s also convenient for a lobby that contains Guardian Angels (more on them later).
Sabotage
If you’re an Impostor, getting voted out can be frustrating. After all, your job was to kill the Crewmates, and you can’t do that if you’re a Ghost. Fortunately, however, sabotaging gives you a way to continue the fun even after you’ve been ejected. You also have a lot more freedom in using it because you don’t risk other players seeing you standstill just before sabotage happens.
One thing that’s important to remember is that you no longer have the ability to kill, so sabotaging should only function to either facilitate the other Impostor’s killing or draw suspicion away from them. Don’t just do it because you’re bored, and you want to feel like you’re still part of the game. Always give it a while before sabotaging anything to see if the other Impostor has their plans for what they want to sabotage. If they don’t, then you can go ahead and do your own thing.
A great thing to sabotage is doors. If you can trap two people alone in a room, they may become suspicious of one another. You can also delay them getting to their tasks. Also, if you know one player is sus of another and is following them, you can sabotage the doors to split them up, thus making the first player even more suspicious.
The most important thing is if a player sees the other Impostor venting or faking a task. You can lock doors to stop them from getting to the Emergency Meeting button before the other Impostor has a chance to kill them.
Being a Ghost means you can easily get an idea of where all the other players are and which sabotages will be most convenient for the current state of play. If most of the players are on one side of the map, call fatal sabotage on the other side. It might be that they all assume someone else will fix it, and you can win by the timer running out. I’ve often won as a Ghost Impostor by calling O2 on The Skeld.
You can also sabotage Communications to stop people looking at the cameras to allow the other Impostor to make an easy kill in an area that would otherwise have been visible on camera. Or you can call lights if it looks like someone might be about to walk in on the other Impostor doing something sus. Use your Ghost abilities to your advantage and move around regularly to watch the other players and work out the best sabotages for that particular moment.
What is the Guardian Angel role?
In November 2021, Innersloth added 4 new roles to Among Us – Scientist, Engineer, Shapeshifter, and Guardian Angel. 3 of them are only available to living players, but the Guardian Angel role is exclusive to Ghosts. This is another excellent way to enhance the gaming experience even after you’ve died/ been ejected. It’s only available for Crewmate Ghosts.
The Guardian Angel can cast a protective shield around living players. If an Impostor tries to kill someone who’s been shielded, their kill cooldown will be reset, but the player will remain alive.
Ghosts and Impostors can see the shield when it bursts, but Crewmates cannot and will have no idea that a kill was just attempted. Nobody can see the shield until it’s been burst (when the Impostor tries to kill), so an Impostor wouldn’t be able to know if a player had been protected.
The shield lasts between 5 and 30 seconds, depending on the lobby settings. This means that the Guardian Angel needs to be careful about when to use this ability, as often it’s set for a low timer. You need to make sure to use it only when a player could be in actual danger and not waste it just because someone is around and you want to use your power. The cooldown for the Guardian Angel ability is between 35 and 120 seconds, again dependent on lobby settings.
If you wish to use your ability, you’ll need to click the ‘Protect’ button. It will only be available if a player is in range. You need to be very specific about when to click it, as it’ll protect the nearest player. So you could accidentally end up protecting the Impostor rather than a crewmate if you’re not careful about your position.
This is why it’s so important to know who the Impostor is, as that way you can follow them and protect a player who appears to be in danger. If an Impostor is going into a room where a Crewmate is by themselves, it’s best for you to quickly float ahead and protect that player.
At the end of the round, right before the discussion time commences, a message will appear on-screen during the Emergency Meeting that says ‘The Guardian Angel has protected someone recently.’ Hopefully, this should make the Crewmates wonder if anyone has been getting suspiciously close to them or if they were alone with anyone.
What is Ghost Chat?
Although the living players won’t be able to see any of your messages, the rest of the Ghosts will. There’s just one chat, so the Impostor isn’t excluded from being able to partake in the social aspect of Among Us. It’s pretty funny having full-on discussions, which the living players are entirely oblivious to.
You’ll be able to see all the messages sent during an emergency meeting, including those sent by living players. The background is different, so you can easily tell which is a message by another Ghost and by someone living.
Just like your bodies are faded on the map, your messages have a faded background that isn’t such a bright white color. It means two different conversations can happen simultaneously during a meeting – one between only living players and one between only Ghosts.
However, often Ghosts like to interact with the living chat even though they know the players can’t see it. So they may react to something that’s happening between the living players. It’s really funny to watch them try and figure out who the Impostors are when you already know. It can also be frustrating watching them make stupid decisions and desperately wanting to talk to them to make them see sense.
A cool feature is that the chat isn’t available just during meetings when you’re a Ghost. You can also talk during the round as well. This is useful because it means that if you discover who the Impostor is, you can put it in the chat where the Guardian Angel can see. That way, they can hopefully follow the Impostor and protect people. If you’re an Impostor, you can try and lead the Crewmate Ghosts astray by pretending that someone else is the other Impostor.
FAQs
Question: When was the Guardian Angel role added?
Answer: Innersloth released an update in November 2021 which included the addition of special roles with unique abilities. The Guardian Angel role was added during this update to allow players to interact more with the game even after they became a Ghost. I think it’s wonderful that they included this diversity. The Engineer and Scientist roles are exclusive to Crewmates, the Shapeshifter role is exclusive to Impostors, and the Guardian Angel role is exclusive to Ghosts.
Question: Can living players see Ghosts?
Answer: No. When you become a Ghost, you lose any physical presence, and living players will no longer be able to see you. They can’t see your body on the map, and they can’t see your messages in the chat. However, other Ghosts will still be able to see you. Interestingly, there used to be a super rare glitch where occasionally a living player would be able to see the Ghosts on the map and read their messages. This happened to me a couple of times, and it was surreal; I felt like the little boy in The Sixth Sense (“I see dead people”).
Question: What do Ghosts look like in Among Us?
Answer: When you become a Ghost, the top part of your body will keep the same shape as before, complete with a visor. However, instead of having legs, you’ll instead have a wavy tail. You’ll keep the same color that you started with; however, it’ll lose its vibrancy. Instead, it’ll be a faded, semi-transparent version of that color. You’ll also lose any cosmetic items that you were wearing at the time (although obviously, you’ll get them back once the match is over).
Conclusion
Hopefully, this guide has opened your eyes to everything you need to know about Ghosts in Among Us. There’s a lot more to do than you may have thought at first. You’re also more likely to become a Ghost since the lobbies increased to a size of 15, as typically more people end up dying, and players are more cavalier about who they vote out as they can afford to lose a few Crewmates.
Whether you were a Crewmate or an Impostor, becoming a Ghost gives you a new lease of life. You’re able to move in a way that was impossible before, and it allows you to experience the game in a completely different way. Instead of being sad that you’re no longer a living player, embrace the advantages of being a Ghost. Float through walls and finish your tasks at lightning speed. Perform perfectly timed sabotages. Save innocent lives like a Guardian Angel. Enjoy yourself!
She also runs her own Pop Culture site called Screenhype, is a skilled Rock Climber, and needs put on a merch-buying ban due to the abundance of cons she attends.
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