Indus Battle Royale Review: Made-In-India Mobile Games Just Had Its ‘Cyberpunk’ Moment

"Indus Battle Royale" saw the light of day after years of hype-building. Did it stand up to my expectations? Nope.

Indus Battle Royale Review: The hype train can mess up more than just expectations in the world of gaming. Picture this, you’re CD Projekt Red. Your record-breaking RPG, “The Witcher”, has garnered praises from critics and gamers alike, and you’re flush with cash. Your upcoming IP, “Cyberpunk 2077” has fans going gaga for over eight years. You announce the game for an April 2020 release, but for COVID and other hurdles, you end up releasing the game in December that year. What you do, however, is release an unfinished game - and all hell breaks loose. Your game is a glitchy mess, at a much less standard than what was promised for years. Your game gets removed from digital stores due to the onslaught of negative feedback. You deal with probes and class-action lawsuits with settlements to the tune of nearly $2 million, leaving your fans swearing off CD Projekt Red for good.

Well, if we push aside the myriad of probes and lawsuits and only consider the release of a shockingly unfinished game, watered down so much that even the water graphics in the game look flatter than a concrete floor, made-in-India mobile games just had its ‘Cyberpunk’ moment, thanks to the much-hyped launch of “Indus Battle Royale”.

For what seemed like years in making, “Indus” kept fans on the edge of their seats with one tantalising reveal after another. I still remember the 2022 ‘First Look’ trailer, which promised a whole lot of ‘Indo-Futurism’ - complete with an engaging narrative and an even more engaging lore-full world. Such territories are only reserved for AAA video games on consoles and PC, not mobile games.

The so-called ‘First Look’ also teased a Ganesha-looking battle armour that instantly piqued my interest.

Did I get to play as the gun-toting Ganesha when the game finally released two years later? Nope! Matter of fact, the character/skin was removed entirely over the years.

Now, I will give benefit of doubt to Pune-based developers SuperGaming here. It’s your IP. You can choose to drop characters as and when you see fit.

However, when you promise to give gamers something epic, and then end up launching the worst-looking mobile battle royale out there and still expect people to go gaga, I’m afraid you have another thing coming. 

Worst Graphics Out There

Simply put, “Indus” is incomplete. 

When you load the game, you’d expect to see some sort of a detailed intro movie catapulting you into the Indo-futuristic world of Virlok. Well, none of that happens. 

For a game that wants to imagine what would have happened if the Indus Valley civilisation flourished over the years, this certainly feels like wasted opportunity.

What you do is end up playing yet another ho-hum tutorial and then figure out your way to launch the Battle Royale mode where you jump off from a PUBG-like plane (dubbed ‘Vimaan’) and then survive a round of boring shooting action, where you’d wish you were eliminated so that the whole ordeal is over with. 

Why is it an ordeal, you ask? Well, let’s start with the graphics. The many, many teasers and trailers promised “Indus” to have fully detailed vegetation and well-fleshed out environments that bring a “Fortnite” meets “Call of Duty: Mobile” vibe.

However, what you end up seeing might remind you of the blocky buildings and objects from those old-school “Counter-Strike” games. 

The vegetation is all but absent, the houses pop out of the ground like unsuitable blocks. The guns and vehicles (you get to ride around on hovering motorcycles) look more flat than anything else. 

When you switch from Performance to Quality mode in Settings, the graphics gets only slightly better. You see a bit more vegetation on the map. However, everything still feels blocky and lifeless. 

Worst Gunplay Out There

The overall gameplay funda of “Indus” is pretty similar to other mobile battle royales out there. You get to jump off a plane, land and gather weapons, shoot others or survive by camping, and then win by becoming the last player standing. 

You can also win the game by collecting Cosmium, which is a drop item appearing towards the end of the match. Whoever picks up the Cosmium is the winner.

The movements that you are allowed to do is run/sprint, jump, and also slide on the ground while shooting (aka CoD). Once you are injured, your movement becomes very limited, just like any other battle royale game. 

The gunplay is particularly shocking on ‘Indus’. With so many teasers and possibilities to play around with multiple gun combos, I found that all the guns behave similarly. The recoil, spray area, damage boxes - everything feels similar. You might expect that in a 2024 game, guns might add some complexity to the overall gameplay. However, in the case of “Indus”, the flat gunplay mars the gameplay’s overall potential by a huge amount. 

You get to choose between a myriad of skins, each character with a separate persona, but no special attack or skill that I could spot. So, these character changes are nothing more than just cosmetic skins. 

Of course, there are microtransactions and in-game purchases involved. You earn Indus Credit or IC, which you can use to unlock skins and guns. You can also use real money to buy ICs - the standard affair. 

Is Nothing Exciting?

Probably the only thing that got me excited about ‘Indus’ is that when you land on a map, your character does an Iron Man-like superheroesque landing. 

Also, when you are killed by any player during a match, you can declare a ‘Grudge’ against that player. Once you do that, the next match will see you pulled into your killer’s lobby, and you will also see the approximate location of your killer on the map. This certainly adds to a more personal touch.

Indus Battle Royal Review: Final Verdict

“Indus Battle Royale” has a lot of potential. If SuperGaming delivered what it promised, “Indus” would certainly have been the talk of the town. Perhaps it was the studio’s call to scale back the overall graphics and gameplay to ensure compatibility on lower-end devices. However, that cannot justify an unfinished product after nearly 2 years of hype-building. 

For now, the gameplay is boring. The graphics is flat at best. As I said earlier, “Indus” does have potential. “Cyberpunk 2077”, with its many updates and fixes, is now one of the finest first-person RPGs out there. Will “Indus” be able to pull off a similar success? Only time will tell.