Among Us violated Geneva Convention for a while

It’s not the first video game to do so

Among Us not only showed us that our friends and family are deceptive demonic spawn you’re unable to trust under any circumstances, but also violated the Geneva Conventions Act for a while. This was recently confirmed by InnerSloth, the hit social deduction game’s developer.

Sharing the story on Twitter, InnerSloth admitted that it had to make a change to one of the title’s background graphics after the game gained popularity in 2020. Though released in 2018, Among Us only became a phenomenal hit after being popularized by Twitch streamers.

One of the rooms in Among Us’ primary map is a medical bay, which originally used a red cross as a symbol as a recognizable sign for the medical nature of the area. Using a red cross in this manner, however, is a violation of the Geneva Conventions Act 1957, which was pointed out to the developers by players.

InnerSloth then quickly changed the cross from red to blue to comply with international law.

fun fact: after the game got big in 2020 we had to change the colour of the MedBay cross because we apparently violated the Geneva Conventions Act by making it red???? oops pic.twitter.com/7Idvv1sglu

— Among Us 🚀 (@AmongUsGame) February 1, 2023

InnerSloth is not the first studio to be caught off-guard by this part of the Geneva Conventions Act – it joins quite a prominent list of developers who also had to change parts of their games to be compliant with it. Halo, a huge franchise, originally used the red cross on medpacs, which was later turned into a red “H”, while Prison Architect used the symbol on some vehicles, prompting a notice from the British Red Cross (thanks, PC Gamer).

"My immediate reason for writing is that it has been brought to our attention that in your game ‘Prison Architect’ a red cross emblem is displayed on vehicles," the notice to Prison Architect developer Introversion Software read, "Those responsible may be unaware that use of the red cross emblem is restricted under the Geneva Conventions for the Protection of War Victims of 12 August 1949, and that unauthorised use of this sign in the United Kingdom is an offence under the Geneva Conventions Act 1957.”

It’s a good thing no one is looking too closely at any of our Stellaris runs, because a lot of strategy games pretty much allow committing war crimes without any drawbacks.