Oopsies! Among Us Once Violated The Geneva Conventions

Among Us has been known for many things. Let’s Plays with politicians, weird porn, and general astounding success. But did you know they also accidentally broke international law?

According to a fun fact tweet from the official Among Us Twitter account, the folks at Innersloth were forced to change the MedBay cross in the game from red to blue after the game got big.

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

The use of the red cross symbol is governed by the International Committee of the Red Cross, and misuse of the symbol is actually a violation of the Geneva Conventions. Funny that!

Plenty of games have apparently broken the Geneva Conventions aside from Among Us, and some of them flew into the Among Us Twitter’s replies to give the team a pat on the back and an assurance that they weren’t alone.

Dang, Big Geneva got to you too?

— Team Meat (@SuperMeatBoy) February 1, 2023

So not only is this not the first time it’s happened in a video game, but it’s not even the first time we’ve written about it. Back in 2017, the developers of Prison Architect were contacted by the British Red Cross for the exact same reason, and plenty of games like Halo have had to quietly change the symbols in their games to other symbols.

Weirdly enough, it doesn’t seem like every game gets the same treatment when it comes to using the red cross. Some games, like Left 4 Dead, simply don’t give a shit and continue to use the red cross in their game.

However, it looks like the Among Us devs realised that they’d be violating the Geneva Conventions due to the folks over at indie publisher No More Robots facing the same issue three separate times.

this may in fact be how we discovered this

— Among Us (@AmongUsGame) February 1, 2023

So if you ever play a game that has a red cross signifying a health pack or a first aid kit, I hope you feel some comfort knowing that they’re violating the Geneva Conventions.