Three AAA titles announced in quick succession! India's gaming industry is heating up

The Indian gaming market emerged in the late 1980s. With the rise of arcade halls, the first generation of Indian gamers began to experience arcade games such as *Street Fighter* and *Metal Slug*;

A few years later, in the early 1990s, a flood of Nintendo and Sega-compatible consoles—or, more accurately, knockoffs—began to dominate the market. Paired with various all-in-one cartridges, classics like *Mario* and *Contra* found their way into Indian households. According to statistics, at the peak of this trend, there were as many as 55 different knockoff NES models in circulation in India.

However, thanks to the low cost and ease of duplication of optical discs, PC games soon replaced these knockoff consoles, and a flood of pirated games on optical discs began to gain popularity in India. Titles we are all familiar with, such as *Violent Motorcycle*, *The Sims*, and *Need for Speed*, were equally beloved by Indian gamers.

Before the rise of mobile gaming, video games in India had always been the exclusive domain of the "Brahmins" and "Kshatriyas." As an inherently cultural product, it is difficult to separate production from the market in the development of a nation’s gaming industry. In other words, from the very beginning, the Indian gaming market has been unable to support the development of domestic games.

Matashi, India’s most famous knockoff game console company, attempted to clone the Sega MD game *Brian Lara Cricket* in 1999. They planned to release an 8-bit knockoff version of this 16-bit game. So how did they go about it? They outsourced the project to a company in Xi’an—yes, you heard that right: Xi’an, China.

Here’s a little-known fact: in the early days of the Indian gaming market, most of the hardware and software technology came from mainland China and Taiwan. Although our knockoff consoles didn’t have the best reputation back then, they genuinely helped bring the gaming scene to life for players in India and across Asia.

By 2025, India is projected to have approximately 590 million gamers, 1,900 game companies, 130,000 industry professionals, and an annual industry output of $3.7 billion—all while maintaining a growth rate of over 25%. Hey, doesn’t that sound like a scene of “vibrant vitality and flourishing growth”?

But a simple comparison with our data reveals India’s true colors. As of the end of 2024, China had approximately 670 million gamers, with industry revenue reaching 325.7 billion yuan—equivalent to roughly $45.3 billion. Note that this figure refers to revenue, not output value. In other words, while the Chinese market is about 10% larger than India’s in terms of revenue, its output value is more than ten times that of India’s—and the gap in years of experience developing mobile and online games is even wider.

Next, let’s take a look at the three Indian 3A models

First up is *Bharat: The Dawn of a Nation*, billed as “India’s first college student” and “India’s dark myth.” Any discerning viewer can tell that this game is all about CGI—whether it’s the visuals, the gameplay, or the story. To be fair, there’s really nothing to fault in the CGI of the first half of the trailer, but as soon as the in-game footage kicks in, the truth comes out. You have to admit, the Indian developers and IGN are a match made in heaven—one dares to release it, and the other dares to publish it.

Next up is a Souls-like game titled *Unleash the Avatar*. If *Age of Bharat* is the “Indian Dark Souls,” then this one is the “Indian Late Ming.”

Valent Meya’s team is small, but their approach to game development is far more pragmatic than that of their predecessor. As a studio operating as a content company, they have considerable experience in areas such as environments, visual effects, and motion capture. Over the past year and a half, the team has devoted significant effort to exploring the streets and alleys of India, using 3D scanning technology to build the game’s asset library. Everything looks very solid.

Currently, *Unleash the Avatar* is 60% to 70% complete and is expected to be released next fall.

The third Indian 3A title is *Maharathi Bheem*, adapted from the legend of the great warrior in the Indian epic *Mahabharata*,

That’s the way it is: these three so-called AAA titles—which, combined, probably haven’t been in development as long as the first trailer for *Black Myth* was—are all making a grand entrance, vying to present themselves as exceptional and claiming to be destined for greatness.

Actually, Indian games aren’t all bad. Compared to these so-called AAA titles, I’m more optimistic about some local Indian indie games, such as the dark-themed roguelike *Asura*, which received an 86% positive rating on Steam in 2017;the combat-adventure game *Raji: Legends of the Ancient*, which launched on Switch in 2020; and this title, *The Missing Game*, which tackles social issues by letting players take on the role of an Indian woman trying to escape the clutches of human traffickers.

While China’s gaming industry may seem to have achieved success overnight, it would be hard to say it would be as thriving as it is today without the independent games that paved the way over the past few years. Perhaps these Indian indie games, which have yet to make a significant impact, are more deserving of the title “the future of Indian gaming.”

Thinking back to the Indian film *3 Idiots*, which took the world by storm 16 years ago, the story focused on the aspirations of young people, the oppression faced by Indian women, and the hardships endured by the poor. By addressing India’s social issues with humility, it ultimately achieved great success.

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