After PUBG Mobile and 117 other Chinese apps were banned by the India Government, the whole gaming scene of the country is in chaos. With a dedicated fan base on over 50 million players in India, the removal of the game has created a vacuum that its competitors Free Fire, Call of Duty Mobile and Fortnite are trying to fill.
Amongst these competitors, the most peculiar is probably a new home-brewed title called FAU-G. In this article, we would take a look at FAU-G to see if it could replace PUBG Mobile in India.
1 - What is FAU-G?
FAU-G (Fearless and United Guards) is a play on the Hindi word for a person associated with the military. It is also suspiciously passable for a weird pronunciation of PUBG. The timing of FAU-G's reveal (during the Indian border conflict) along with the focus on the Indian Army seems like an attempt to cash in on the mainstream attention and attract the wave of gamers who are looking for an alternative to PUBG Mobile.
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2 - When will FAU-G be released?
The announcement of the game was pretty well received after shared by the Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar. However, it was later debunked by the internet - revealing the fact that the shared poster was a stock image edited with Indian flags and texts. With one of the most essential details like a poster incompleted, it is unlikely that the game would be released anytime soon.
nCore Games is one of the leading Mobile games publisher in India, based in Bangalore. They have been developing a range of multiplayer mobile games specifically for the Indian market. However, their main job is still a contractor - nCore is in an exclusive partnership contract with Rovio Entertainment of Angry Birds fame. FAU-G would be their first standalone project.
According to the team at nCore, they have been working on FAU-G since May/June.
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3 - Can FAU-G challenge the competitors?
The Gaming world changes super fast... and making a game is not that easy. If they have only begun working on FAU-G since May, it would take at least a year or more for the game to be completed and polished. That's way too long and the opportunity might have already passed. Below is the tweet from Akshay Kumar about the game.
Besides that, nCore also does not have much experience - this is their first announced game. Making a full game is much harder than getting contracted to work on parts of games - they also have way fewer resources and manpower than companies like PUBG Corps. or Garena. Overall, it is unlikely that FAU-G could challenge the giants on the stage.
However, we can always expect the Indian Spirit and nationalism to pull through - the game would definitely get a supporting playerbase, being completely home-made by Indians.
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