USC Among Us Tournament

-Written by Tara Edwards

USC Games students came together last Friday, April 16, to betray, sabotage, and eliminate their friends and classmates in the first ever USC Among Us Tournament.

Among Us is a popular multiplayer online party game which takes place on an alien space station. Players are secretly assigned the role of either Crewmate or Imposter. While the Imposters attempt to covertly kill each Crewmate off one by one, the Crewmates must attend to their tasks and hold emergency meetings to vote off and banish the Imposters into space.

Last Friday’s tournament was structured into two stages, with the first stage involving 12 rounds of the game across the three original maps, followed by the second stage, the Finals, in which the top scoring players from the first round faced off. The tournament awarded a Grand Prize trophy for first place along with gift cards for the top three winners. Architecture student Yiwei Lyu took first place, while three Viterbi students tied for second place: Prabudh Gupta, Andrew Jin, and Audrey Bongalon.

The USC Among Us Tournament was a group effort from MBA graduate student Jenny Liu, MSBA graduate student Keshav Srinivasan, third-year Journalism undergraduate, Dylan Palacios, and Associate Director of USC Trojan Esports and third year Philosophy, Politics, and Law student Andrew Obeso. The team also received help from USC Games Faculty Advisor Jim Huntley, USC League of Legends Head Coach Joe Jacko, and Residential College Coordinator Tyler Benateigha. 

Due to the remote learning and social distance restrictions in place during the pandemic, Jenny Liu felt that she and her fellow classmates may have missed out on in-person bonding and networking opportunities. Lui has always had an appreciation for interactive gaming and its ability to bring people together through immersive experiences so she reached out to Jim Huntley, who also had the vision of putting together casual gaming events for our Trojan communities

“The Among Us event is a way to allow students to interact with Trojans outside of their normal classes,” said Liu. “We want to provide a space for students to have fun, with the goal of more casual gaming events to connect Trojans across the campus in the future.”

While last week’s event was the first tournament involving Among Us, USC Trojan Esports has held casual games tournaments throughout the semester and plans to host future social events. “We hope to provide a space to connect students across USC schools in both undergraduate and graduate programs through fun casual gaming events and to meet others outside of their school and network,” Liu said.

For those interested in future USC Games Trojan Gaming events: Please fill out this short survey so that we can put together fun events with your input and suggestions.

For more information on events hosted by USC Trojan Esports, be sure to check out the website and Discord server. Fight On, and Game On!