Best Social Deduction Games

Highlights

• Social deduction games have timeless mechanics and easy connectivity, making them popular for hangouts and collaborations among players and streamers.
• These games often receive updates and improvements, extending their shelf life and keeping players engaged with new features and better net code.
• Unique gameplay elements and roles in social deduction games add variety and challenge for players, keeping the gameplay fresh and exciting.

Social deduction games are as popular today as ever, even years after their release. The timeless game mechanics and easy connectivity make these games mainstays in any hangout. And because they’re easy to play, everyone can chip in regardless of age.

Although new party games are released every month, these next titles still get sizable concurrent daily players. Streamers also often dip back to these popular social deduction games for collabs and engaging with their chat. Oftentimes, these players return to improved features or even better net code. Modding and dedicated player bases also extend the shelf life of these titles.

9 First Class Trouble

Steam Reviews: Very Positive (2,990) | For up to 12 online players

In First Class Trouble, “Residents” are trapped in space trying to shut down the evil AI C.A.I.N. that is trying to take over their ship. Working against their efforts are “Personoids,” human-like killer robots sneaking among their ranks to help C.A.I.N. Eliminating opposing players and either stopping or helping the evil AI leads to victory.

Players can explore the retro-styled ship to do tasks that either sabotage or help C.A.I.N. Oxygen is limited, so players must manage their global supply to prevent deaths on both sides. Voting players off the ship also heavily plays into the game.

8 Feign

Steam Reviews: Very Positive (2,990) | For up to 12 online players

Cute, bouncy, and occasionally murderous, Feign is a Mafia or Werewolf-style game. Players must decide via vote who to throw out of their village to protect their faction. Innocents, impostors, and neutrals must assess who among their village are friends and foes to get the job done.

Unique roles throw the standard playing formula in disarray. Mad can confuse players because their skills do nothing, Haunters can hit back if they get kicked out, and Provokers can turn the tide either way.

7 Deceive Inc.

Metascore: 75 | For up to 12 online players

The greatest spies in the world converge in Deceive, Inc., a first-person shooter that doubles as a social deduction game. Although marketed as a shooter, players must work together to deceive staff, security, civilians, and enemy teams to pull off a great heist.

In-game, players can disguise themselves as civilians or even toilets to move around the enemy team and breach the vault. They can use gadgets to reveal enemies and weapons to eliminate the other team or sabotage their escape. After grabbing the booty, they must then make it to the extraction point with the objective intact.

6 The Jackbox Party Pack 6

Metascore: 80 | For up to 10 online players

The sixth entry in the long-running party game series, Jackbox Party Pack 6 has social engineering built into its games. Role Models, Joke Boat, Dictionarium, and Push the Button in particular depend on how well a player knows their friends.

Push the Button is a Werewolf-style game where some players are secretly evil aliens. Players have a better chance of winning if they know their friends’ tells. The other three games are easier to win if players know what makes their friends laugh or what response fits their personalities best.

5 Project Winter

Metascore: 75 | For up to 8 online players

Developed by a team from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Project Winter depicts all the horrors that come with hiking in a blizzard. Survivors must band together to escape by gathering resources, repairing the radio to call for help, and eventually making it out alive. Standing in their way is the harsh weather and wilderness, as well as traitors within their midst.

Traitors will sabotage equipment and supplies to prevent survivors from escaping. They may even kill survivors before time runs out. Since survivors can defend themselves, traitors must be as wily as them if they hope to succeed.

4 Town Of Salem

Metacritic User Score: 7.9 | For 7 to 15 online players

Town of Salem is an early Werewolf-style game made popular by its free, browser-based version. About 7 to 15 players must investigate the opposing faction and eliminate them through a vote to take control of the town. In classic mode, the factions are split between townies, mafia, and neutrals, though expansion packs introduce more factions.

These new factions spice up the game for fans as they introduce new abilities and impositions. Town of Salem also released a ranking system that motivates players to keep practicing.

3 Deceit

Metacritic User Score: 7.0 | For up to 6 online players

Another shooter-type social deduction game, Deceit drops players in abandoned locations infected by a deadly virus. 9 players must escape and either work with players or fight them to survive. Their decisions can spell life or death, as certain infected can turn into Terrors that can destroy them.

In Practice, this means players must arm themselves, secure supplies, clues, and objectives, and vote out suspected Terrors. For Terrors, they must secretly collect blood and sabotage the innocents before they can escape.

2 Goose Goose Duck

Metacritic User Score: 8.8 | For 5 to 26 online players

Goose Goose Duck is the unexpected hit of 2021. Much like Among Us, a gaggle of geese is thrust into an interplanetary ship in need of maintenance. Stopping them are ducks, who must murder the requisite number of geese until the gaggle can no longer vote them out.

Geese need to complete all their objectives or throw impostor ducks out through deduction. They must also look out for neutral roles like dodos, falcons, pelicans, pigeons, and vultures, who have unique win conditions. Ducks also have different roles that give them unique skills.

1 Among Us

Metascore: 85 | For 4 to 15 online players

Competing with Goose Goose Duck at the top spot is Among Us. The game that arguably restarted interest in social deduction games is unsurprisingly still popular. Aside from being embedded in pop culture since the quarantine era, it has continued to release fun updates and collabs.

One such update is The Fungle map, which is full of Easter eggs, secrets, and new tasks. Collabs like their Hololive update bring new waves of interest in the still-popular franchise. Game mods like “Hide and Seek” also give players new ways to seek out traitors among them.

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