The made-in-India game FAU-G release date is January 26, 2021 for Android and iOS devices. Announced in the wake of PUBG Mobile’s India ban, it’s an action game based on the exploits of the Indian Army encompassing a story mode at launch with plans for multiplayer and battle royale down the line. In the run up to it Republic Day launch, IGN India spoke to FAU-G developer Ncore Games Founder and Chairman Vishal Gondal, and Co-Founder and COO Ganesh Hande to find out more. Previously the duo revealed that FAU-G's pre-registrations crossed four million and described Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar’s involvement in its creation.
Before we could get into our questions, Gondal outlines what we can expect at launch and in the future. If you were expecting a PUBG-like experience out of the gate, think again.
“We do want to be clear and we will also mention this in the game,” he says. “There will be battle royale mode and PvP [player versus player] modes, but they will clearly be labelled as ‘Coming Soon’.”
FAU-G Battle Royale and Multiplayer Confirmed, Just Not at Launch
What this means is, FAU-G will ship with a story mode to start with which will allow for single-player and co-operative play. The reason for this, Gondal says is to prevent potential launch day issues.
“We are not launching it on day zero with all these modes, we want the game to be stabilised and avoid any potential issues like latency,” he says. “The story mode will be the first one. And then we are hoping that over the period of six to eight months intermediately we will be launching more features and updates.”
Some of these features he hints at include what’s been seen in the most recent trailer of the game such as guns and paragliding. The reason for their absence he claims, is to stay true to the Galwan Valley setting which forced combatants to use makeshift weapons cobbled together from what they could find. That said, it’s trailer did seem reminiscent of another battle royale game that you can’t play in India right now.
On the topic of battle royale, FAU-G’s map for that mode won’t be Galwan Valley. Expect a different battlefield when it hits.
“We will most likely be looking at a different map for that,” says Hande. “But it is too early to reveal any details around that.”
FAU-G Is Not PUBG
“We are not trying to copy PUBG, true to the story of Galwan there are no [conventional] weapons in this but there are unique weapons, which were used by actual soldiers,” he says. “Having said that, in the future updates as we go outside Galwan Valley, there will be weapons. And you saw the trailer where we even showed paragliding and machine guns. We want people to know that aise nahi he ke nahin hoga ye but ye aage chal ke hoga [which roughly translates to: it’s not like it won’t happen, it’ll happen down the line]. Guns and other conventional weapons will be there later on. The first level that we are launching with will not have that."
Considering that FAU-G leans heavily into the Indian Army aesthetic and that the current political climate in the country is steeped in jingoism, is Ncore concerned about the game being misappropriated or misconstrued by overzealous fans? Does the company see its creation as a political statement or simply entertainment?
“It is entertainment clearly but it is with purpose,” Gondal claims. “There is no mindless shooting or just fighting for the sake of fighting in this game. For example, when you are representing your country in the Olympics, you're not just running. There is a sense of purpose. So I think the idea behind FAU-G is that while we definitely want gamers to enjoy, and in this case, it's also about knowing about the sacrifices of our soldiers. We’re attaching you to a larger purpose. And the purpose is that using this, you have the ability to also directly contribute to the lives of our soldiers positively with Bharat Ke Veer.”
Made-in-India and How It’s Perceived According to Ncore
Furthermore, Ncore isn’t working in a bubble either. Rather, the team is painfully aware of its detractors, part in due to the fact that it is, well, made in India.
“I can see people are mocking FAU-G, and we see the same thing aare Indian vaccine kharaab he [translates to: Indian vaccine is bad], and all of that,” he says. “[People do] not know that 70 percent of all vaccines are made in India. So I think we have this inherent thought process that something in India is not good. But reality is far away from the truth. A lot of products now are being made in India. You know, Amazon is making stuff in India, Microsoft, Google. The same product coming from Google, people will love but the same product with an Indian company attached to it, people always have suspicions around it.”
“I think what the players have to look forward to is the sacrifice of our Indian soldiers and the struggle they go through to protect our borders,” adds Hande. “If you compare it to any other game, there’s mostly just a story for it, but there's no purpose, there's no meaning. But our our goal, right from the start has been to make sure people know, the sacrifices and what the Indian Army goes through to protect us.”
At the same time, while the duo believe in the game their studio is putting out, Gondal is quick to state that the expectations for FAU-G’s launch build should be on par with how audiences treat day one releases from other studios.
“Compare us to the first release of any other game and not the final release,” he says. “Don't compare us to the 870th update of Call of Duty. Call of Duty's an 18-year-old franchise, right? We've just got started. People need to think of us as the child who's born. You will not compare the child who's born to a Usain Bolt directly who's running and making Olympic records.”
FAU-G Monetisation: Cosmetics, Ads, and Perhaps a Battle Pass
And while Ncore is eager to stress on what kind of game FAU-G is, we had to ask what we could expect in terms of monetisation.
“When we launch we will be launching with story mode, this mode will be supported by cosmetics and will connect to the future modes which we will be doing,” says Hande. “So the reward system which has been built into the game will connect not just the campaign mode, but it will eventually start connecting with the multiplayer and battle royale that will come out. So to answer your question, the monetisation will be with cosmetics.”
It will be interesting to see how monetisation in the form of cosmetics as well as rewards system will tie-in to a player’s progress in FAU-G eventually across all game modes. Probing further, we asked if FAU-G will feature ads. The reason being, most free-to-play Indian games on iOS and Android tend to be laden with ads along with in-app purchaes. Although FAU-G will have advertising, it will be implemented judiciously we’re told.
“There will be ads, you can’t call it a hypercasual ads kind of framework that tends to spam you,” Hande says. “It is only if player wants to get some currency. Then they can watch an ad once or twice a day and get it.”
A battle pass is in the works as well though Hande tells us it will be available “eventually but not at launch.”
FAU-G’s Story
In terms of story, the game is set in 2020 with a lot of it inspired by recent Galwan Valley events. Ncore has pieced together a narrative focussed on a fictional Indian Army squad that shares the same name as the game.
“The whole game at launch is about how this unit of the Indian Army that we’re calling FAU-G goes through Galwan and how it comes out of it,” says Hande. “In terms of research, there was a lot of material already available online, on how the entire Galwan incident happened.
So we took that as a source of inspiration. We created our own story in-house, primarily using cutscenes to communicate the story. But at the same time, there is a lot of in-game voice overs to emphasise it as well.”
FAU-G Gameplay, Controls, and Progression System
Also, Hande elaborates that the game’s progression system will allow for multiple replays despite its story having a definite beginning and end.
“Replay mechanics are tied towards the reward system and the different types of cosmetics which they can unlock multiple times,” he says. “In terms of a story hook, the final cut-scene hints that there is more coming. We just don’t want to stop at Galwan right? Because our whole purpose is to kind of let our user base or let Indians know about the struggles of Indian Army. So as and when we are building all these multiplayer modes, there will also be an attempt towards telling more bravery and sacrifice stories of our Indian army to our player-base.”
As for the gameplay itself, it will have a third-person camera at launch, not first-person. Don’t expect FAU-G to have any whimsical or unrealistic gameplay elements like power-ups or over the top moves. Weapons will have tiers of rarity complete with statistics determining attributes like power and durability. Hande hints at a possible cool-down timer for your character too.
“It is pretty close to realism in tone and gameplay elements because of the nature of the subject we are dealing with,” he say. “We tried to be away from that, at least for the first chapter due to where it is set. Being a high altitude locale, your player character will need to take time to rejuvenate.”
The control scheme will be similar to the virtual button layout most smartphone games have nowadays. Players will be able to customise controls later on and gamepad support is planned as well. Ncore is aiming for consistency and familiarity due to multiplayer being on the way.
“It will be mostly the standard controls, because multiplayer is also coming soon,” says Hande. “So we don't want to really make a big switch from what we have now to eventual multiplayer. It is your standard d-pad and attack buttons.”
Multiple Theatres of War
Though the one aspect of the game that this not extend to is how it displays a game over screen.
“We really didn't want to punish the player too much, or try to monetise too much out of the failure points,” says Hande. “So they respawn at certain checkpoints.”
With the game set in the modern era we had to ask if there were plans to explore other time periods like the 1960s and 1970s. Interestingly, don’t expect it to be set firmly in the current day.
“Our team is really excited to explore not just the modern day war, but even go back to the earlier skirmishes which have happened around India,” says Hande. “And this also gives us a really good way of creating new characters for multiplayer too.”
What will you do when they come? We will hold our ground & fight back, because we are Fearless. United. Unstoppable FAU:G! Witness the anthem 🦁 FAU:G! #FAUG #nCore_Games
— nCORE Games (@nCore_games) January 3, 2021
Pre-register now https://t.co/4TXd1F7g7J
Launch 🎮 26/1@vishalgondal @akshaykumar @dayanidhimg pic.twitter.com/VGpBZ3HaOS
Can Your Android Smartphone Run FAU-G?
Ncore says that one of the biggest requests from the community is to expand support for the game to low-end Android smartphones. While the studio has hinted that support for those aforementioned low-end devices is on the way, we wondered about what kind of frame rate and resolution you could expect.“We already have built in graphic options from Ultra to Low,” says Hande. “So if it aligns to player's device capabilities, it will scale automatically. But if they can increase or decrease it as they wish.”
As for smartphones with high refresh rate displays, would they be locked at 60fps or will Ncore take advantage of newer tech?
“It will be locked at 60,” Hande confirms.
Whether it’s a problem within the country or at the border...these Bharat Ke Veer always stand tall. They are our Fearless And United Guards, our FAU-G! Witness the anthem 🦁
— Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) January 3, 2021
Pre-register now https://t.co/8cuWhoHDBh
Launch 🎮 26/1@VishalGondal @nCore_games @BharatKeVeer #FAUG pic.twitter.com/ctp5otrjLE
FAU-G’s Esports and Multiplayer Could Have Been Day One
Finally we had to ask that when Ncore releases multiplayer support for FAU-G, would it cater to the hardcore esports crowd or casual audiences?“First will be multiplayer, and then esports will come up,” says Gondal before revealing that there is indeed a version of the game that’s multiplayer-ready but won’t ship on day one.
“While we do have the capability of launching all of this now, we have a build which could do it, but we are not launching it, because we know it will have latency and all those issues,” he says. “So we are purposely delaying this. I know it is, uh, you know, it could be a questionable strategy. But like I said, you don't want to on your first day itself have more than you can chew.”
