Sometimes we like to wear our Sherlock hats and scan the scene for any traces of concerns below the veil of marketing shtick. A few months ago we asked the SuperGaming, the team behind Indus Battle Royale, about eSports and how community feedback drives their game development process. You can read about it here. However, the meat of the matter was missing so we went back with our hats on and grilled the team about the specifics of Indus Battle Royale. Important questions concerning only the game and what should players expect. Thankfully, SuperGaming was open to tackling the hard questions…
Everything we know about Indus Battle Royale
Waiting to vibe in Virlok? Here’s what you can expect
How long will each round of the game last?
Each match is around 14 to 17 minutes. It appears to be the sweet spot for players based on feedback from our own internal playtests as well as our community playtests for the game. However, as we keep iterating and testing, this might change in the final release.
Are there going to be vehicles?
Yes. We're adding vehicles to Indus in order to give players a quicker way to traverse through Virlok's many exotic locales. While the development teams are a big fan of Destiny 2 and its implementation of on-ground vehicles, the challenge is to incorporate it in a way that makes sense with our lore, world, and setting. And it's something we're working on right now. Hopefully, players will be able to experience it soon in our upcoming community playtests.
*The team teased a two-wheeler on their Twitter handle a few weeks ago. You can check that out here.
One of the biggest features of a BR game is its map. While we understand a full reveal is under wraps, what’s the state of Indus’ map, Virlok?
Internally and in our community playtests, Virlok is playable. However, since we're still in development, we're constantly iterating upon each location to ensure that our vision of Indo-Futurism shines through. With that in mind, we created The Cradle. From the perspective of an in-game story: it's a training area to acclimatise Mythwalkers with conditions on Virlok. But more importantly, it will give players a clear idea of what we want the game to look like from a visual perspective.
Is there a weather system?
Right now we’re laser-focused on bringing Virlok, our first map to life. It’s an ambitious task, to create a map this vast and detailed to scale and look good on all platforms: PC, consoles, and mobile. The process is akin to planning an entire city — except we’re optimising it for the best ways for players to explore and shoot each other in the face instead of well, making it liveable as you would for a real-world city. And that’s before you consider that each platform has its own intricacies to deal with like input methods and visual fidelity to name a few. That said, we're deeply considering a weather system as well as a day and night cycle. It's something we've toyed around with in our internal builds as from a player perspective, it could allow for some intriguing possibilities.
What are the tactical pieces of equipment in the game?
Some of the tactical add-ons to your weapons in Indus include scopes, stocks, and sights. These were added to allow player freedom in how they choose to use each weapon. Want to add a 5x scope to your shotgun? Go right ahead. Prefer a red dot sight on your sniper rifle? No problem. To us, customisation and player expression is core to the Indus experience. Being fans of shooters like Call of Duty and Apex Legends, we felt that this would be a fun way for players to make each weapon truly their own with an added layer of depth albeit with a twist that's entirely our own. Indus will also feature charms — cosmetic attachments you can add to your guns. It's something we hinted at previously when we revealed a nimbu mirchi charm attached to a rifle.
Is there a way to revive teammates?
Yes, teammate revival is present in Indus right now. We want to give all players a fighting chance at winning and allowing for revives is a step in that direction. This allows for a greater degree of accessibility and lets them experiment with more aggressive styles of play knowing that their teammates can revive them if things go awry.
What are the minimum device requirements for Indus?
Android 6.0+ and iOS 11+. Currently, the game works fine on devices with 4GB RAM or more and we are continuously optimising it to support more low-end devices. Most smartphones bought in 2020 onwards should be able to run Indus at playable frame rates. Visual fidelity may vary based on the exact hardware in use as well as user-customised graphics settings. Hopefully, most mainstream Android and iOS devices should be able to run the game with no issues when it’s out. We haven’t locked in the final minimum requirements to play Indus just yet. However much like our other games, we take compatibility seriously.
What are Indus’ anti-cheat measures?
Indus will launch with necessary anti-tampering and hack-prevention systems. Ensuring a safe and fair experience for the players is of utmost importance to us. We take cheating very seriously and employ a variety of methods to prevent it. Our aim is to make Indus fun and fair for all players, much like our existing games — MaskGun and Silly Royale, we monitor and act on any unusual activity to ensure the community isn’t impacted in any way.
Will Indus have a ranking system like other games?
Yes, Skill Based Matchmaking (SBMM) and Ranking System for competitive play are part of the development plans. Indus will however launch with a basic matchmaking system and ranked matches will come in at a later time once we have ensured there are no core gameplay issues in the early stages of the launch.
Which 3D software do you use to make Indus?
3ds Max, Maya, Zbrush, and Blender are some of the primary 3D Software we use every day to author content for the game.
What game modes will Indus have?
Indus will launch with battle royale as its main mode. We will explore new and interesting modes as part of special events and seasonal updates once the game is fully launched.
How big is the Virlok map?
Virlok is around 9 square kilometres.
Would different characters have different skills?
Indus is not a class-based hero shooter like Valorant, Apex Legends, and Overwatch but players will definitely get to see our own interesting take on augmenting players with some special abilities on the plains of Virlok, sometime after the launch.
Can we play on a low-end pc?
When Indus eventually launches for PC platforms, it will offer enough scalability to run with decent performance on relatively lower-specced hardware. Exact details like minimum and recommended specs will be announced at the time.
What’s the frame rate cap for Indus?
We are testing with 60Hz/60fps devices every day in the studio. On PC we have tested up to 144fps on 144Hz displays. Technically we can allow much higher frame rates as well, but we’ll reveal those details closer to the PC release.
Is Indus gameplay in first-person perspective (FPP) or third-person perspective (TPP)?
Indus will have both FPP and TPP at launch. We have poured a lot more time and effort into polishing the FPP till now. We aim to do the same for TPP as we head towards the launch.
How does Cosmium work as a win condition in Indus?
Finding Cosmium is the primary objective of the Mythwalkers in the universe of Indus which made sense to have it as a win condition. Whoever gets their hands on Cosmium wins. Cosmium is a mysterious substance that spawns on Virlok and can only be found there. Also, only one piece of Cosmium can spawn at a time and in certain moments of play. This makes Cosmium rare and rewards only the Mythwalker that is able to get to it. This isn’t the only way you can win in Indus. Like other battle royales, you can also win by being the last player standing.
What will be the download size of the game?
Currently, the game binary is around ~500Mb but this can and will grow as we add more content to the game heading towards release. We will ensure players have the option to download only content they prefer to play and hence keep the binary footprint on their devices as low as possible.
How many characters are in the game?
We are always exploring new and exciting character designs that fit well within the Indo-Futuristic theme of the game. However, it can be quite a lengthy process. The characters that we have already shared and via our social media channels have all found their way into the game already. We will continue to share more of the new character designs as they’re ready to be added to the game.