‘This Can’t Be Real’: NBC News Roasted for Wild Description of Popular Video Game That Suspected CEO Shooter Played

NBC News was ruthlessly roasted online for the way the outlet described a popular video game that was played by the suspected CEO shooter.

On Monday, police arrested and charged 26-year-old Luigi Mangione for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione was spotted in a fast food restaurant in Pennsylvania, prompting an anonymous tipster to notice police.

In an article published late Monday night, NBC News mentioned how Mangione regularly played the game “Among Us,” stating:

Luigi Mangione, who was arrested and charged with murder in the shooting death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, once belonged to a group of Ivy League gamers who played assassins, a member of the group told NBC News.In the game, called “Among Us,” some players are secretly assigned to be killers in space who perform other tasks while trying to avoid suspicion from other players.

The game, which gained popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, involves a group of players completing mundane tasks on a spaceship. Up to three players are randomly chosen

as imposters whose primary goal is to kill the other crewmates without being caught. When a crewmate is killed, all players are summoned into a voice channel where they try to deduce who the killer was and jettison them from the ship. The crewmates win if they correctly remove the killers; the killers win if they kill the crew and also get crew members falsely accused.

The game was particularly popular among younger gamers, and the light-hearted, cartoonish tone meant the game has been viewed by many as child-friendly.

Because of this, gamers online were taken aback by NBC News’s characterization of the game.

To NBC News’s credit, however, the article later explained the game was indeed child-friendly. In fact, the primary reason “Among Us” was mentioned was due to the fact that one of Mangione’s old friends — who played the game with him — found it “extremely ironic” that “we were in this game and there could actually be a true killer among us.”