FAU-G an Indian Alternative to PUBG, Announced by Akshay Kumar After China App Ban

FAU-G is a made-in-India PUBG Mobile alternative that is being published by Bengaluru-based nCore games, and Indian game industry veteran Vishal Gondal and actor Akshay Kumar have also taken to Twitter to promote FAU-G. FAU-G is short for Fearless and United-Guards, and tweets promoting the game say it will donate 20 percent of its revenue to the government's fund-raising initiative Bharat Ke Veer. However, there is no word on the release date of FAU-G. It is also unclear whether the game will be limited to mobile devices or if it will also get a PC version.

Entrepreneur Vishal Gondal, who is the CEO of fitness wearable maker GOQii, posted a tweet on Friday to reveal the development of FAU-G. Gondal, who founded India games in 1999, which he sold to Disney in 2011, had invested an undisclosed amount in nCore Games in March last year, and is serving the startup as a strategic adviser.

Apart from Gondal, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar promoted the development of FAU-G through his Twitter account. A poster suggesting the storyline of the game has also been shared on the microblogging site. It is touted to be a contribution towards the “Atma Nirbhar Bharat” (self-reliant India) campaign by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The announcement of FAU-G comes in a couple of days after the government banned PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite alongside other 116 mobile apps in the country that had a linkage with China. The battle royale game was quite popular among young Indian mobile gamers.

Founded in 2018, nCore Games doesn't have any popular games under its developer profile on Google Play. The company's site, however, shows that Angry Birds maker Rovio is one of its partners. The company also worked as a partner on the popular mobile battle arena game, Vainglory.

Gaming in India has been slowly building momentum and PM Modi talked about an indigenous game industry just days ahead of the PUBG Mobile ban. In August last year, a combat-based mobile game titled Indian Air Force: A Cut Above was released by the Indian Air Force officers. Google Play listing of that game shows over 10,00,000 downloads so far.

Should the government explain why Chinese apps were banned? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.