IPL cricket season is going on, and while I was still a little disappointed watching the Mumbai Indians lose to the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the last-ball drama, I found myself doom-scrolling on X trying to distract myself from the result.
Out of nowhere, I came across visuals from a cricket game published by KRAFTON, which was quite a surprise to me since it was nowhere. Soon after, it became official that this title was quietly soft-launched as Cricket All Stars in India on Android devices.
Cricket All Stars immediately looked like it was aiming for a faster, cleaner, and more visually modern arcade-style experience. The game already features officially licensed IPL teams like Lucknow Super Giants and Kolkata Knight Riders, complete with jerseys and player likenesses.
Since I had already covered the soft launch announcement, which currently runs until May 20, 2026, I wanted to test the game myself. After spending time with it, I can safely say one thing immediately: this game has massive potential.
The visuals feel next-generation for a mobile cricket game
The very first thing Cricket All Stars absolutely nails is presentation. The moment you launch the game, you’re greeted with the KRAFTON logo alongside the licensed IPL branding for LSG and KKR, instantly giving the experience a premium feel.
Once the home screen loads in, the game throws a lot of colours at you, which you won’t feel out of place for sure when you look at the menu, and that alone already shows how much effort has gone into visuals here. Now, if I am strictly speaking about the licensed teams, we have all the players’ real names listed.
But what made this so lively is that this is probably the closest I’ve seen a mobile cricket game come to delivering realistic player faces and body models properly. The rest of the unlicensed models are meh, but with licensing, I know where they will stand. The shadows especially deserve praise.
The gameplay side, too, was impressive. I genuinely could not stop noticing how good the lighting looked during matches. The colors pop beautifully, sunlight reflections feel natural, and stadium presentation carries that polished broadcast feeling KRAFTON was clearly aiming for.
You can speed up follow-through sequences by tapping the screen. For example, once a batsman hits the ball, tapping instantly fast-forwards the animation at 2x speed. There is also an auto simulation option; if you are too lazy to bowl, let the AI do it for you. You can watch the action unfold. I don’t think I’ve experienced this system in a cricket game before.
Gameplay already feels smooth, but a few things clearly need work
Cricket All Stars already has a good core. Controls are simple, responsive, and easy to understand, even if you’re casually jumping into the game for the first time. Bowling especially feels nice here because the game clearly shows the ball trajectory and gives proper visual feedback while delivering.
Combined with the smooth toss animations and stadium aerial shots before games begin, there’s clearly a big focus on presentation quality here. But there are definitely areas where the game still needs improvement.
The biggest issue for me right now is the batting camera angle. Bowling cameras look excellent, but batting feels awkward because the camera sits too far away from the action. More importantly, there’s no proper cinematic tracking camera after hitting the ball, which makes boundaries and lofted shots feel less satisfying than they should.
The fancy fire trail effects on the ball also feel unnecessary. Like, I don’t know why they have added it, it makes the game feel arcadish, which in fact is not in other parts of the game. I understand the idea, but at the very least, there should be an option to disable them completely.
I also didn’t like the shot mechanics, where mistimed shots won’t clear the inner circle, and shots should be inconsistent sometimes, depending on the pace of the bowler. The core gameplay is fun, but polishing shot realism further would improve the experience massively.
There’s the strength of customization, too, where under the Facilities section, the game lets you personalize almost everything around the match atmosphere. You can unlock and equip different bat skins, wicket designs, stadium themes, laser effects, fireworks, celebrations, and even emojis. A lot of these customization items are currently locked because of the soft launch build, but you know what awaits us.
The UI looks modern, but the AI-generated assets stand out negatively
The UI design was refreshing, I would point out. The menus are colorful, modern, smooth, and visually attractive without feeling cluttered, as you can see from the image I attached. The Champion Pass system, Draft Room, unlockables, and customization menus all feel polished enough already, very clean and easy access too.
There’s plenty of use of AI here, though. You can very clearly tell where AI-generated art has been used for transitions and loading visuals, even the first few clippings, which were super bad, and I couldn’t bother to give them a watch.
Compared to the excellent in-game graphics, these assets hurt the game’s overall identity. Scrap this entire AI video catalog and also the AI-generated woman who pops up like a manager, KRAFTON, you are good to go.
Final Thoughts
Cricket All Stars has all the potential you need to be a superstar. This is still an early soft launch build, yet visually, it already feels ahead of almost every mobile cricket game currently available. The game absolutely still needs work.
Camera angles need improvement, realism balancing requires tweaking, licensing expansion is important, and some effects need toning down. But the foundation here is seriously impressive, and as a long-time lover of mobile cricket games, we need such titles.
For years, the space has mostly been dominated by the Real Cricket and World Cricket Championship franchises. Competition in this genre has felt stagnant for a while, especially visually. I hope the KRAFTON vision of bringing cricket games to mobile expands even further with this.
More first impression reviews on other games:
- Totopia first impression: A Colorful Mix of Relaxation and Chaos
- Monster Hunter Outlanders first impression: An ambitious RPG with blockbuster visuals
- KICK BUDS playtest first impression: A fun idea that struggles where it matters
- UFL soft launch first impression: The competition eFootball and FC Mobile needed
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