The first trailer for Indo-futuristic battle royale Indus made its debut on New York’s Times Square to celebrate India’s Independence Day on 15 August. Developed by Pune-based SuperGaming, Indus will release on mobile, PC, and consoles. The trailer showcases SuperGaming’s intent to deliver a bold and new experience for gamers the world over.
“Indus is at a stage where within the development team, we are able to play it in-house regularly. While there’s still some work to be done before we can bring Indus to all of you, this trailer shows what we’re crafting to match your expectations and our ambition of putting India on the global gaming map,” says SuperGaming co-founder and CEO Roby John.
In addition to this, the trailer also highlights that pre-registrations for Indus will begin later this year on both Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store for mobile devices.
With Indus, SuperGaming leaned into its strength of putting players first with a community playtest for the game at its studio in Pune earlier this month. It included players, content creators, and esports pros. Their response to the game and its themes allows SuperGaming to make Indus better and has validated its many design decisions.
“The feedback from our community playtest strengthened our resolve that this is the right way to develop games. We can’t build a better game without knowing who we’re building it for and what they want,” says John.
Battle Royale by the numbers with a community-first approach
The underlying philosophy of working hand-in-hand with the community is how SuperGaming crafted its biggest hits — MaskGun and Silly Royale. Popular multiplayer shooter MaskGun has amassed over 64 million players since its launch. This is due to a relentless focus on putting its players first with consistent community collaborations, even leading to some of its biggest members featuring in-game as well as celebrating India-specific events like Diwali.
Similarly, the recently released social deduction game Silly Royale has over 20 million players in a year, in no small part thanks to regular community and content creator initiatives. The company aims to do the same with Indus with this playtest being the first of many planned.
The Indus Community Playtest resulted in a host of interesting takeaways including:
- Over 50 per cent of those at the playtest want more game development and behind-the-scenes content.
- 80 per cent of the community had a positive sentiment with the theme of Indo-Futurism.
- Roughly 30 per cent prefer gyroscopic controls in-game.
- Most entries for playtest invitations were from Pune followed by Delhi, Gujarat, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala.
- The average age of players being under 25.
All of these details are in line with the company’s outlook on the market potential for Indus. Battle royale games are played by 350 million gamers in India and are a billion dollar market in the country. In-app purchases on mobile shooters grow year on year at 40 per cent CAGR. Most importantly, no game has been built for an India-First audience until Indus.
