Announced on the India's 75th Independence Day, SuperGaming's Indus could finally provide a solution for the country's millions of battle royale hungry gamers.
Few need told about India's love of the battle royale genre, with the country's gamers, like so many others, becoming enthralled with the winner takes all game mode.
That enthusiasm doesn't mean it's been plain sailing. In 2020, the deterioration of the relationship between India and neighbouring China, related to a long-running border dispute, caused the most popular battle royale in the country, PlayerUnknown's Battleground (PUBG), to be banned, along with 300 other Chinese-based apps, including rival battle royale Garena Free Fire, citing national security concerns.
That resulted in the release, a year later, of Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), which saw PUBG's Korean developers Krafton, take back control from Chinese tech giant Tencent and publish the game themselves.
That wasn't the end of the matter though, as last month reports emerged that BGMI too had been banned, with Indian authorities still not convinced that the game doesn't represent a national security risk.
However, these battle royale troubles might be behind the country's gamers as a new Indian-led development aims to capture not only the hearts and minds of gamers at home but also abroad.
SuperGaming Reveal First Trailer For Battle Royale, Indus
Best known for the regionally successful MaskGun and Tower Conquest, SuperGaming have loftier aims with their next title, describing it as a "made-in-India for-the-world" battle royale.
And to give credence to those claims, the game's first trailer was debuted not in the heart of Delhi, but in Times Square, New York.
We weren't kidding when we said we'd put Indus India on the global gaming map. Here's the first trailer for Indus on New York's Times Square. #IndusGame #GameDev #MadeInIndia #IndependenceDay pic.twitter.com/lDj9BraDfp
— Indus Game (@IndusGame) August 15, 2022
Though make no mistake this is an Indian-led production, with the trailer released on the country's 75th Independence Day and featuring a character styled after Ganesha, the Hindu deity.
Touted as an "Indo-futuristic" battle royale, the trailer showcases some of the game's tech-enhanced characters and the colorful planet of Indus which is home to a rare, and now fought over, resource.
The game will be free-to-play and available on Android, iOS, PC, and console, claim the developers, giving it plenty of avenues to potentially disrupt the crowded battle royale market.
Whether it will, as so many have tried and failed to do, remains to be seen, but we won't have to wait long to find out. The game is set for release later in the year.