Top 14 'Trust-and-Treachery' Social Deduction Games to stream for a weekend of hilarious accusations with your friends. - Goh Ling Yong
There’s a special kind of magic that happens when you gather your friends for a game night. But when that game night involves accusing your best mate of being a cannibalistic monster or a backstabbing alien, the magic turns into pure, unadulterated chaos. And honestly? We wouldn't have it any other way.
Welcome to the world of social deduction games, a genre built on the delightful pillars of trust and treachery. These aren't your typical co-op experiences. They are high-stakes digital playgrounds where your ability to lie convincingly—or detect a lie—is your greatest weapon. One moment you're working together to fix an engine; the next, you're pointing fingers and banishing your friend into the cold void of space based on flimsy evidence and a "suspicious" tone of voice.
Whether you're looking to spice up your weekend streams or just want a surefire way to create unforgettable memories (and maybe a few friendly rivalries), this list is your ultimate guide. We've compiled the top 14 trust-and-treachery games that are perfect for a weekend of hilarious accusations and masterful deception. So, grab your headset, rally your crew, and prepare to question everything you thought you knew about your friends.
1. Among Us
Let's start with the titan that brought social deduction to the masses. In the vast, silent vacuum of space (or on a high-tech planet), a team of colorful, bean-shaped Crewmates must complete tasks to keep their ship running. The catch? One or more of them are alien Impostors, hell-bent on sabotaging the mission and killing everyone on board.
The beauty of Among Us is its elegant simplicity. The tasks are straightforward, making the social element the absolute star. Emergency Meetings are frantic, chaotic courts where the loudest, most convincing, or most manipulative voice often wins. It’s a game of alibis, suspicious pathing, and desperately trying to explain why you were standing over a body with a bloody knife. It’s the perfect entry point for anyone new to deception games.
Pro-Tip for Impostors: Master the "third-impostor" technique. When you see a kill and another player is nearby, immediately run to the emergency button and confidently accuse the other witness. It creates instant chaos and masterfully deflects suspicion, often getting an innocent ejected.
2. Project Winter
If Among Us is a lighthearted romp, Project Winter is its grim, unforgiving older sibling. A group of eight survivors must brave a frozen wasteland, gathering resources, repairing objectives, and calling for rescue. The problem? Two of you are Traitors, actively working to ensure no one leaves the mountain alive.
This game adds a thick layer of survival mechanics to the social deduction formula. You have to manage hunger and warmth, fight off bears and wolves, and craft tools to survive—all while trying to figure out who is secretly poisoning the food, laying traps, or leading you into an ambush. The environmental danger makes it so Traitors can win without ever directly attacking anyone, creating a deep sense of paranoia.
Pro-Tip for Traitors: Use the environment to your advantage. Open the bunker with a group, but "accidentally" leave the door open to drain the heat. Lead a "friendly" expedition for resources far from camp, wait for the blizzard to hit, and then conveniently find your way back alone.
3. Goose Goose Duck
Take the core concept of Among Us and inject it with a dose of pure, unhinged chaos. That’s Goose Goose Duck. You're all geese, trying to complete your tasks. The impostors? They're murderous ducks (and other fowl fiends). The twist here is the sheer number of roles available.
With over 40 optional roles, no two games are the same. You could be the Dodo Bird, who wins by getting themselves voted out. Or the Vulture, who wins by eating the corpses of killed players. Or the Gravy Goose, whose killer gets a bounty. This variety transforms the game from a simple "who is it?" to a complex web of hidden objectives and hilarious reveals.
Pro-Tip for Innocents: Pay attention to who is too eager to vote someone out. It might not be a Duck; it could be a Dodo Bird trying to trick you into giving them an easy win.
4. Dread Hunger
All aboard a 19th-century vessel navigating the treacherous Arctic! Eight Explorers are on a mission, but two Thralls are secretly practicing dark magic and serving a malevolent power. Their goal: to sabotage the voyage by any means necessary—including ritualistic murder and cannibalism.
Dread Hunger is dripping with atmosphere. It's a game of survival, crafting, and unbearable tension. Thralls can craft bone daggers, summon whiteouts, and slowly poison the ship's food supply. The Explorers, meanwhile, are just trying to keep the boiler lit and steer the ship through icebergs, all while their sanity and trust in each other fray. The first time you see a crewmate feasting on a fallen comrade is a moment you won't forget.
Pro-Tip for Thralls: Early game is for subtle sabotage. Steal a bit of coal here, poison a piece of food there. Let the cold and hunger do the heavy lifting. Save your big, murderous plays for when the crew is already weak and paranoid.
5. First Class Trouble
Imagine a luxurious, retro-futuristic cruise ship where the AI has gone rogue. Most players are Residents, trying to shut down the rogue AI. Two players, however, are Personoids—robotic impostors aiming to stop them.
First Class Trouble is stylish, slick, and full of unique traitor mechanics. Personoids need to conceal their identity while discreetly working against the team. The game's standout feature is proximity-based voice chat, which makes secret conversations and overheard whispers a core part of the strategy. The objectives often require teamwork, forcing Personoids to fake cooperation until the perfect moment to shove a Resident into a swimming pool fire.
Pro-Tip for Personoids: Volunteer for dangerous tasks that require two people. Find another player and head to the airlock. If you're lucky, they're the other Personoid. If not... well, only one of you is coming back.
6. Deceit
Ready to add a dose of first-person horror to your betrayal? In Deceit, you wake up in an unknown location with five other people. A third of your group has been infected with a virus, and their goal is to sabotage and murder the rest.
The game is split into two phases. During the day, the Innocents run around completing objectives to progress, while the Infected try to secretly drink blood bags to power up. When the lights go out, the Infected transform into terrifying monsters and hunt the Innocents. It’s a fast-paced game of frantic action, resource management, and pure terror when the lights flicker.
Pro-Tip for Innocents: Trust is a resource. Pay close attention to who grabs what. If someone is hogging all the blood bags, they're either incredibly thirsty or planning to turn into a monster and eat your face.
7. Town of Salem 2
The classic browser-based game of mob justice is back and better than ever. Town of Salem 2 is the quintessential role-based social deduction game. Players are assigned one of many roles belonging to different factions: the Town, the Mafia, the Coven, the Apocalypse, and Neutrals.
Each night, players use their role's ability (investigating someone, protecting someone, killing someone). Each day, the survivors convene to discuss what happened and vote to lynch someone they believe is a threat. It’s a purely psychological game where your last will, your alibi, and your ability to craft a convincing argument are your only weapons. My friend group and I, Goh Ling Yong included, have lost entire evenings to its "one more game" loop.
Pro-Tip: Keep a detailed will. Note who you visited, what your results were, and your suspicions every single night. Even if you die, your will can be the key piece of evidence that leads the Town to victory from beyond the grave.
8. Barotrauma
This is perhaps the most complex and rewarding game on the list. You and your friends are the crew of a submarine navigating the crushing, monster-filled depths of Jupiter's moon, Europa. It’s a 2D co-op survival sim... with a traitor mechanic.
The Traitor's mission can be anything from simple sabotage to assassinating a specific crew member or smuggling alien artifacts. The sheer complexity of the submarine systems means a good Traitor can cause catastrophic failures that look like accidents. A rewire here, a misplaced fuel rod there, and suddenly the sub is plummeting into the abyss. It has a steep learning curve but offers unparalleled depth for dedicated crews.
Pro-Tip for Captains: Run a tight ship. Restrict access to critical areas like the armory and reactor room. A little bit of in-game authority can make it much harder for a Traitor to operate without being noticed.
9. Unfortunate Spacemen
Often described as "Among Us meets The Thing," Unfortunate Spacemen is a first-person multiplayer game about paranoia and hidden monsters. Spacemen must complete objectives to be rescued, but one of them is a shapeshifting alien monster in disguise.
The monster can mimic any player, lay traps, and transform into a terrifying beast to hunt down the crew. The Spacemen, however, are not helpless. They can find weapons and security systems to fight back. The game excels at creating moments of intense paranoia, where you're never sure if the person asking you for help is a friend or a monster luring you into a trap.
Pro-Tip for Monsters: Don't reveal yourself too early. Spend the first phase blending in, faking tasks, and subtly isolating individual players. A single, well-timed transformation in a secluded area is far more effective than a rampage.
10. Eville
If you love the role-based gameplay of Town of Salem but wish it was a 3D open-world experience, Eville is the game for you. In the medieval village of Eville, a group of Conspirators commits murders by night, while the innocent Villagers try to unmask them by day.
During the day, you can roam the village, brew potions, buy and sell goods, and talk to other players to gather clues. At night, you must stay in your home for safety... unless you're a Conspirator on the prowl. With roles like the Seer, Ghost, and Trapper, there are tons of strategic layers to peel back.
Pro-Tip for Villagers: Use your money wisely. Buying a trap for your door or a potion to reveal footprints can provide concrete evidence in a game that's often based on hearsay.
11. Secret Hitler
A masterful board game that now has excellent free-to-play digital versions (Secret Hitler IO being a popular one). Players are secretly divided into two teams: Liberals and Fascists. One player is also secretly Hitler. The Liberals win by enacting five Liberal policies or assassinating Hitler. The Fascists win by enacting six Fascist policies or electing Hitler as Chancellor after three Fascist policies are in place.
Each round, a President and Chancellor are elected who must enact a policy drawn from a random deck. This creates incredible moments of tension and distrust. Did the President pass a Fascist policy because they had no choice, or because they're a Fascist? It’s a brilliant game of political intrigue and calculated accusations.
Pro-Tip: As a Liberal, if you're President and draw two Fascist policies and one Liberal policy, always discard a Fascist policy. This allows you to truthfully tell the table, "I gave my Chancellor a choice." This builds trust.
12. Gartic Phone - Secret Mode
While Gartic Phone is primarily known as a hilarious drawing version of the Telephone game, its hidden gem is the "Secret" mode, which turns it into a fantastic, lighthearted social deduction game. Everyone writes a secret sentence. Then, you're all given prompts to draw—some are real prompts from other players, but some are your own secret sentence.
The goal is to get other players to guess your secret sentence by subtly incorporating it into your drawings for other prompts. After a few rounds, everyone votes on who they think was the "secret" player for each prompt. It's less about murder and more about clever visual manipulation and hilarious misinterpretations.
Pro-Tip: Be abstract but not too abstract. If your secret is "The cat is on fire," don't just draw a cat on fire. When asked to draw "a sunset," maybe draw the sun with little pointy cat ears. It's a game of planting subtle seeds of an idea.
13. Spyfall
Spyfall is a game of quick rounds and even quicker accusations. All players but one are given a card showing the same location (e.g., a "Casino," "Space Station," "Pirate Ship"). The final player is the Spy, and their card just says "Spy."
Players then take turns asking each other questions, like "What are you wearing?" or "What's that smell?" The goal of the regular players is to ask questions that prove they know the location without giving it away to the Spy. The Spy's goal is to listen, figure out the location, and blend in. It's a brilliant, fast-paced game that's all about carefully chosen words.
Pro-Tip for the Spy: Your first answer should be as vague as humanly possible. If someone asks "How's the weather?" don't guess "sunny." Say something like, "It's exactly what I expected," or "I'm more focused on the task at hand." Buy yourself time to listen.
14. Werewolves Online / Werewolf Within (VR)
We have to end with the OG. Based on the classic party game Mafia, Werewolf is the foundation upon which many of these other games were built. Players are secretly assigned roles as Villagers or Werewolves. Each night, the Werewolves secretly choose a Villager to kill. Each day, the remaining players debate and vote to lynch someone they suspect is a Werewolf.
There are many digital versions, from simple apps like Werewolves Online to immersive VR experiences like Werewolf Within. The core gameplay is timeless: a battle of logic, persuasion, and mob mentality. Special Villager roles like the Seer (who can learn a player's identity) add strategic depth, but it always comes down to who can tell the most convincing story. As Goh Ling Yong would say, the classics are classics for a reason.
Pro-Tip: If you're a Werewolf, the best defense is a good offense. Be one of the first to lead the charge against an innocent player. By establishing yourself as a "leader of the village," you deflect suspicion and gain influence over future votes.
And there you have it—14 incredible games guaranteed to fill your weekend with laughter, high-fives, and the sweet, sweet taste of betrayal. The best social deduction games aren't really about winning or losing; they're about the wild stories you create together. They're about that one perfect bluff that fools everyone, or the shocking reveal that the quietest player was the mastermind all along.
So, which of these trust-and-treachery games will you be firing up for your next stream or game night? Did I miss any of your favorites?
Drop a comment below and share your best story of betrayal! Let's hear those hilarious accusations.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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