Emergency Meeting 🚨 ‘Among Us VR’ Launches New Polus Point Map

Gather your Crewmates and be on the lookout for Impostors because Among Us VR just launched a new map: Polus Point!

Inspired by Polus in the original game, Polus Point was actually named by committee—more than 14,000 beans voted on the new map’s moniker. Beyond it community-chosen alluring alliteration, the new map has a lot to offer:

🚽 Plunge into over 50% more tasks, including THE CLAW
🔍 Search nine new rooms for delicious hidden objects
🎬 Walk the plank with brand-new kill and ejection animations
⛄ Bonus: Now with snowstorms!

Players will also be treated to five free hats! The 🥶 FREEzing Polus Point Hats include:

🍒 Cherry-Picked: No dessert is complete without it!
🎯 Trapp’d: For hunting Crewmates
🎧 That’s EMuff: No, you’re emuff!
🧊 Icemate: Don’t worry—it’s melt-proof
😸 Purrtected: Claws not included

But that’s not all! The devs are also rolling out the first-ever Among Us VR-exclusive DLC hat pack with five never-before-seen original designs.

The Polus Point Picks hat pack includes:

🐻 Brr-Bear-y: Luxury imported textiles. A modern take on bean fashion
🐧 PengYinz: NOOT NOOT! The cutest headpiece you’ll ever wear
🌟 Cap-tivating: Just like Grandma used to make!
❄️ Royal Ice-ing: Let it go into the unknown
⚠️ Breathe Gud: You’ll have a gas in this hat!

You can grab the full pack or stay warm and cozy with the Brr-Bear-y hat, which is now available in the original Among Us in-game shop for 500 beans.

Additionally, to celebrate today’s launch, Schell Games is hosting the Polus Point Party Giveaway. Five randomly-selected Grand Prize Winners will receive:

🎬 1 Among Us VR Polus Point 24” x 36” Movie Poster
👚 1 Among Us VR Polus Point T-Shirt
🎒 1 Among Us: Crewmate Backpack
☕️ 1 Among Us: A-Mug-Us Crewmate Mug
🗝️ 1 Hat Pack: Polus Point Picks DLC key for you
🗝️ 1 Hat Pack: Polus Point Picks DLC key for a friend
📙 1 Schell Games Notebook
🖊️ 1 Schell Games Pen
💵 1 Amazon Gift Card

To enter, all you need to do is retweet today’s Polus Point Party giveaway tweet and follow @AmongUsVR on Twitter (er, X...?) between now and August 24. Check out the Official Giveaway Rules for more details.

The launch party continues as members of the Schell Games and Innersloth teams play the new Among Us VR Polus Point map with five VR content creators from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm PT. Tune in on your channel of choice:

🔴 GingasVR
🟡 VR Central
🟢 Matteo311
🔵 GamerTag
🟣 Jay Bratt

Last but not least, the devs plan to host a Discord Exclusive AMA on August 10 to answer some of your burning questions, which you can submit in advance (note: not all questions will be answered).

Speaking of which, we sat down with Schell Games Senior Design Manager Ken Moodie, Advanced Producer Bryan Gardiner, and Senior Art Manager + Art Director for Among Us VR Todd Verdeyen for an AMA of our own!

Bryan Gardiner: I’ll go ahead and start. I’m Bryan Gardiner. I’m an advanced producer at Schell Games and was kind of the producer in charge of this section of work for the new map. I joined Schell in November, so right in the throes of this—this is my first real thing at Schell. I come from educational video games and robotics and other companies in the Pittsburgh area in this space. Schell was always on our radar, and I’m super glad I get to be a part of it now.

Ken Moodie: I can go next. My name is Ken Moodie. I’m a senior designer at Schell Games, and I joined on the exact same date that Bryan did—so we’re buddies in that regard, and we work on the same project. Among Us VR is my first project for Schell. I come from a console AAA games background. I worked for Activision, Neversoft, Atari, Shiny, but recently I’ve been doing medical VR. And now the two have converged quite nicely here at Schell Games—games in VR.

Todd Verdeyen: I’m Todd Verdeyen. I’m a senior art manager at Schell, and I was art director for Among Us VR. I have a background in MMOs, so it came naturally, you know—working on a game with a big community and that was on a server. I’ve worked on a number of projects at Schell Games but this has by far been one of my most favorite and memorable projects I’ve been on.

BG: Ken, let’s start with the design stuff.

KM: Sure. The first map that we did, Skeld II, was more of an adaptation of the first game—it follows the same layout and whatnot, and you just jump through VR and make it 3D. Polus Point is more of a departure. We wanted to show a lot of familiar scenes and places that have been expanded into VR, to be made more impressive—I think Todd can speak more to that part. Actually putting it together was more of my thing, the mini-games, which ones we’re going to lift from Polus and adapt, which ones we might lift from other maps—like Clean Toilet is from the Airship, I believe. So my team took a look at those mini-games and thought about how we could bring them into 3D space, how we could apply motion controls to them, so that they’re familiar and yet fresh and re-imagined for virtual reality.

TV: We took a lot of inspiration from Polus. I know personally, for myself, it was one of my favorite maps, so I really pushed for us to do that next. We really just tried to capture that large environment as well when we were designing it. That was a big challenge of ours. This is in VR, so we had to think about how we were going to optimize things and how it was going to run being that it’s on the internet and on a server and everything. So we had to come up with a good strategy to segment the rooms while connecting them in a way that flowed and felt very natural. The way that we did it is very modular, too. It allowed us to have a variety of the same kind of rooms—like we could shift those rooms around and change the layout. That was one of the big things that we decided we wanted to accomplish before we started anything.

I think it got a little harder at times because you’re kind of confined to this box whenever you go modular like that. All the doors had to align to these certain areas so this modular system could work, yet we still had to keep it feeling natural and capture that feeling that Polus gave you whenever you were playing the original as well.

BG: Yeah, and also on the production side of things, the work on the map started before the launch of the base game. Basically as soon as we transitioned into quality assurance for the launch, work was already starting on the new map, just to get ahead of it. And while that was being developed, we were creating live ops content for the game as well. So on the production side, a lot of it was just balancing resources and priorities and timelines, making sure that we stayed on track for this. There’s a ton in the new map—there’s nine new rooms. Ken mentioned there’s a ton of new mini-games. We brought back some other mini-games and changed their appearance to match Polus Point. So we wanted to make sure we really lived up to the new map while also continuing to create new content in the meantime, and it’s all the same team, right? It’s the same development team that works on both sides of things, so that was a production hurdle to overcome.

TV: As for the name, we had several names that we were thinking of and then we had an idea, “Let’s let the fans decide what they want to call this.” I think that just helped us in the end honestly, and we knew that people would appreciate the name. So I think that was a good move on our part.

We worked on the Skeld, and you’re very much in a spaceship, right? I wanted something that was completely contrasting—not the feeling of being in a spaceship. So, I was like, what’s better than going to a planet, you know? And also being able to see up, look at stars and not have ceilings above you—that was something that we wanted to challenge ourselves with. Whenever we had the idea to work on Polus, a lot of the team just got behind it and everyone else got excited. Eventually you want to do all the maps, right, but we had to pick one, and I think that was just the one that a lot of us were fans of already. So we knew that there was going to be a lot of love and attention put into it.

BG: Some additional context for the name is that for the last map, it was pretty much a one-to-one recreation. Because this map was going to be different, we wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just setting expectations, but allowing people to get excited that this is new. This layout is different. This is specifically built just for VR. We’re adapting to the technology itself, and so getting the community involved allows them to be excited about that as opposed to us saying “Here, it’s going to be Polus,” and then something different comes out and, you know, potentially the community would just be disappointed. Now, they can look forward to something new and interesting and exciting because it’s an entirely new place on the same planet. It was also funny because we came up with all of the options for names in seconds. We opened it up to the team to come up with potential ideas to send to the public, and it was an eruption of ideas—we filled out our spreadsheet instantly and needed to figure out how we’re going to manage this because everyone was just so excited about it—like we get to make you a new thing and be a part of this Among Us world.

KM: Naming things was fun, and we want the community to be a part of that—not because we’re being indecisive, but because we want to include them. And like Bryan said, it’s very much because we wanted to define it, like, “Hey, this isn’t just Polus. It’s another place on Polus.” So by naming it something different, we were trying to get to that as well.

TV: It’s not your dad’s Polus.

KM: I can speak briefly to that. Like Todd mentioned, when we had a more modular approach to the map, we had to better understand what sort of things go into a good Among Us map layout. Like how long does it take to get from one place to another, where should the sabotage be located, where is a good distribution of mini-games—so really sort of understanding and how to find those rules which came about by just doing lots of play tests. We had this more modular system which should allow us to be more responsive to that and iterate more quickly, but we were also developing that system in tandem—at the same time as we were actually making the map. So sometimes there’d be technical concerns that would hold things up. Putting resources in both of those is tough to begin with, but then once we have those systems in place, it’ll make it much easier for us to iterate and make changes down the line. Doing those at the same time can be a little tough.

TV: It was a challenge to make it feel like it was an open environment when it wasn’t an open environment. So we did run into areas where it’s like oh, we put this room next to this room and you can actually see inside the other room now so how do we get around that? Was that a hallway or something, a gate system? We moved rooms, we created rule sets around what we could and couldn’t place next to each other, all to figure out what would and wouldn’t work to create the space we envisioned. The MedBay research room has a big window and so does the Dropship. We wanted players to feel that the map went beyond what they could see. We wanted them to sense that they’re on a giant planet.

Another thing that was hard was just optimization. It’s in VR, and it’s on a server, so we had to be very mindful of that from the beginning. We did an awesome job of that on the scale and with the art style alone. It’s not a very realistic art style — it’s very cel-shaded, so we were able to save some budget graphically there. And then also the amount of details that we were putting into the geometry and things like that. We can’t have it be super detailed but we need just enough to get the tone and the mood across from one room to the next. How much can we actually put in the room before we start running into frame rate issues and things like that? We really wanted to push what Quest could do as well, so we were always testing and making sure we didn’t go over frame rate, and if we did, we’d dial it back a little bit.

BG: Yeah, I think the other thing I’ll add is just playtesting it. One of the difficulties is that when you’re making something, it doesn’t work until it’s done, but you need to make sure that when it’s done, it’s correct and it’s what you’re looking for. So we started playing in the map before it was technically playable—like the instant we could literally walk around, we started doing it and we played honor system rules or just found ways to engage with the space as soon as possible because we were creating new technology to make this map possible and it was on a relatively tight timeframe, right? I want to make sure that this is a realistic update. We have people waiting for it in a different way than when you’re trying to develop for the launch. And so we wanted to honor that and move really quickly but also make sure that we took the time to test it, to make sure it’s correct and it was fun to work around that but it can be tricky.

BG: They’re all Polus-inspired, mostly like winter-inspired. My favorite ones are in this, which is kind of convenient for me because we had to test them all the time. There’s some with these really cute scarves, and I like the way that it shapes the Crewmates’ silhouettes, so I’m always wearing those. And we’re trying to find a balance between making them our own and drawing inspiration from the ones that came with the original game’s version of Polus. So it was fun to work on, and I like wearing them.

TV: And just to call out, we do have an artist, Abril, on our team who just loved the hats and making the hats. She did a fantastic job. She did a lot of concepting of the hats, a lot of asset creation for the hats and everything. So just having someone who was really into adding all those hats to the experience, that was great to have, especially as an art director. I didn’t have to think of everything that had to go into the game as well.

KM: It’s a lot of fun to see those hat variations. We have ideas for new hats for years and years, I’m sure.

BG: Just give Abril the space to go, and she’ll take it and make the most incredible stuff.

KM: Well Todd mentioned there’s the MedBay that has sort of the same medical stuff but then there’s also these details. There’s a giant telescope, there’s a window, it’s like you could go outside. There’s just a lot of detail put in there that affords a lot of opportunities, like, “Oh wait, who’s looking through the window?” But as far as my favorite, like, what’s the best thing to do, it’s being chased through the hallways or chasing someone through hallways when you know that that person is the Impostor and they’re going to get you and can you get to the emergency button in time—that’s the key moment for me.

TV: One of my favorite rooms is the office room that we’ve added. We really got that feeling of all these little Crewmates having their break room area. It’s kind of the vibe we wanted to give it, you know, and it also has an interior and exterior space with a lava pit next to it, and just a lot of little storytelling things that were added to that room make it one of my favorites. Also the reactor room with the giant lava pit—that’s something we wanted to add to the game. On Polus, we really wanted to get that extreme contrast between the cold, snowy planet that it is and then you could go into these cabins and feel the heat and the warmth of the lava as it’s bubbling below you—just adding a little bit more drama.

BG: Speaking of lava, I love the new ejections. Dumping someone into lava—it’s so much more evocative and comedic. And then gameplay-wise, it’s a lot more like a labyrinth than Skeld II, so there’s a lot more opportunities to bluff or lie or keep track of who’s where. There’s always a way to get from one room to another in an interesting, creative way, where someone might say, “I didn’t see you go that way earlier,” and you can say “Oh, because I took this turn” or whatever. This leads to less information which means the deception aspect is more important, which I enjoy. And we play the game a lot, which helps.

TV: Yeah, our animator, Justin, had a lot of great ideas for capturing the personality of the Crewmates too, and he just did an awesome job at that.

TV: I can also mention that I really enjoy all the sound and ambience—just kind of opening up the map and I was on my own and walking through it. It’s kind of like when you hear about Walt Disney walking through Disneyland on his own, like its space, when it’s not filled with people. It just feels special—I get to walk through here and just kind of listen to it and see everything while I’m not being stalked and murdered. It’s a pleasant place to hang out in, when you’re not being killed.

BG: Yeah, I think one thing that we have going too is that the whole team is a bunch of Among Us fans. It didn’t ever feel like work. Every day, we would go in and everyone would have ideas and ask how we can make the experience better. The hard part was having to contain those ideas because we all wanted to get all of the things in there, but at the end of the day, we had to have a launch and you can only do so much in the game. But just the team alone, it was very inspirational to work with them.

I also just emphasize that we play it a lot. I think that you’ll feel that when you get to play it because we would find new ways to express ourselves with each other and then amplify that or use that gameplay. We also play with the community pretty regularly. We get out there and see what’s really happening. I think it really helps feed into the design and aesthetic and motivates us.

And Innersloth has a lot of trust in us as well. They give us a lot of creative space—that’s awesome to work with. We do have conversations with them to make sure that we didn’t go too far or anything off-lore, but we’re allowed to have a lot of creative space.

BG: I think it’s pretty under lock and key. I’ll just say that I’m more excited for the future. Like, I know what’s coming, and I’m more excited for that stuff. But I think otherwise—

KM: We might see new hats.

BG: You’ll spoil it, Ken. They’ll hear you.

KM: I’ll say it more.

TV: Yeah, just going to keep quiet on that one.

New to Among Us VR? Grab the Among Us VR Bundle on the Meta Quest Store to save 20% off the base game, the Crew Favorites Hat Pack, and the Accidental Favorites Hat Pack.