Nazara takes over the publishing duties of FAU-G: Domination, the next in the FAU-G franchise

FAU-G makers nCore and Nazara Publishing, the publishing arm of Nazara Technologies, have entered into a publishing partnership to launch FAU-G: Domination across mobile devices.

Speaking of the game, FAU-G Domination was first announced on July 26, 2023, as a tribute to Kargil Vijay Diwas. The game developed by Dot9 Studios of nCore will be a competitive 5v5 multiplayer title that aims to deliver a fun shooter experience celebrating Indian soldiers. It will feature various team-based and solo game modes, with first-person perspective gameplay at launch.

Just like FAU-G, Domination will be free-to-play, with monetization through in-app purchases, and includes robust anti-cheat measures to ensure fair play. For purchases, we shall have battle passes and cosmetic items you can purchase to customize your characters, gear, profile, and more. Custom rooms and lobbies will also be a part of it, so this might ignite competitive action upon launch.

The company representatives express their thoughts behind the partnership alongside the Make in India initiative

The heads of the respective companies expressed delight in the game. Nitish Mittersain, Founder and CEO of Nazara Technologies, said, “Made in India games have a huge potential to address the growing needs of the Indian gamer with locally relevant content, and we are excited to partner with nCore to bring FAU-G: Domination to all our players.”

Vishal Gondal, Co-Founder of nCore Games spoke about the game being in line with the Make in India initiative: “FAU-G: Domination is our humble response to PM Modi’s Make-in-India call, and we’re
thankful that Nazara shares our vision to bring the best of India to the world. This signals India’s arrival as a major player in the global gaming industry.”

Deepak Ail, Co-Founder and CEO of Dot9 Games expressed delight with the partnership and stated: “We’re grateful that India’s biggest games company is supporting us to bring FAU-G: Domination to the world. Gaming is for everyone and FAU-G: Domination is our effort in making that a reality.”

As of now, we do not have the release details of the game yet, but rest assured, we will see the opening of pre-registrations for FAU-G: Domination for both Android and iOS later this year. Keep an eye on this space, as I will be updating the details regarding the same.

Dot9 Games Co-Founder discusses 5v5 shooters, the development process, and more

We got to catch up with Deepak Ail, Co-Founder and CEO of Dot9 Games for a quick interview where we discussed some more details about the game.

While writing this article and reading about FAUG Domination, I looked at the makers going for a 5v5 shooter in this game. My thoughts instantly clicked on how the games of this genre are on the rise, and FAUG Domination will face competition in this regard. I put in this question of what are the team’s plans to tackle it.

The need to have India’s very own shooter experience

Deepak mentioned that it was important to acknowledge that India needs a shooter of its own. The existing games are great, but their focus is India-first. He gives an example of the US and China, where their IPs such as Call of Duty and Genshin Impact grew tremendously at home first before going wide the world over, the necessity for bespoke, India-first content is crucial. Not only does this help local consumption but also allows the generation of greater talent in the nation. That’s the reason he says for them making FAU-G: Domination.

“With that in mind, we did take a long hard look at the state of the market and one aspect that caught our attention early is how players and the broader Indian community tend to react to and interact with cosmetic micro-transactions.” He explains an example: In some games like BGMI, if you’re using the default skin, you could be bullied by your peers or other players to spend money, in that way, cosmetics act as a status symbol. While this has worked to tremendous effect for game studios aplenty, it’s also resulted in some spending to simply keep up with the crowd. Meanwhile in others like Modern Warfare 3, certain items cost more than the game itself.

Deepak adds: “We saw these as flaws. Granted they make their creators a lot of money, but we believe that players should have accessible spending options. How do we do this?” Well, regardless of your ability to spend, we want you to check out our game and eventually, our storefront, and when you do check out the latter we want to ensure you have options at any and every budget.

He continues: “Rather than funnel you into an elaborate or expensive purchase, we want you to have options as affordable as a cutting chai (tea).” He believes that this reduces the gap between haves and have-nots as well as reduces the peer pressure to spend that comes with free-to-play games. This point is pretty valid when you have the idea of bringing the game to audiences across different markets.

The FAU-G expertise in the new title

I was curious about the team working on FAU-G: Domination, particularly regarding their experience with nCore’s first project, FAU-G. So I put in a question about the key learning takeaways from developing FAU-G, and how have these been implemented in the development of this new title. For the same, he explained that the prior games were made by a different studio with different goals and objectives.

He states: “nCore invested in multiple game development studios across the country. While we’re a part of nCore Games, Dot9 Games is a different game development studio within the nCore group of studios that’s been working together on games since the days of feature phones, first at Indiagames and then Disney following its acquisition of Indiagames.”

That said, FAU-G: Domination has been crafted by Dot9 Games from the ground up with a different engine, game tech, story, and multiplayer. They are a studio of industry veterans that grew together over nearly two decades building games first as Indiagames, which was acquired by Disney in 2011, and responsible for titles such as Spider-Man Mobile, BioShock Mobile, IPL, and Cricket.

Speaking of their objective, Deepak expressed that they want to make a game that’s a celebration of Indian soldiers that’s performant on devices used by India’s 500 million or so gamers who want an accessible and relatable shooter experience.

With that in mind, he adds: “Our objective is to be a whole lot more transparent with our approach. This is why our trailers focus on gameplay rather than cinematics we want you to see what you will play. Rather than drip-feed features and details that are simply incidental, we focus on building awareness that this is different from previous games under the same IP.”

And speaking of IP, Deepak discusses that while they are making a different game from a different team, they are abundantly aware of the responsibility we have to uphold. Previous games had 45 million downloads as of last year. “There is a fanbase and we want to do right by them”, explains Mr. Ail.

He continues: “One specific trend we’ve noticed is an ask from players for more Indian-centric characters in their games. Given the FAU-G franchise’s perception as being the torchbearer for Indian military-themed games, we felt we could elevate this with FAU-G Domination’s visual direction.”

FAU-G Domination’s goal from a visual point of view is to showcase how an elite Indian army unit would look. He says the process: “We did this by blending modern-day and near-future military aesthetics with Indian character designs. As most Indian gamers are exposed to military aesthetics courtesy of franchises such as Call of Duty and Battlefield, a sense of relatability already kicks in.”

The Indian perspective is brought out through artistic decisions such as character complexions, hairstyles, and weapons along with narrative choices in terms of origin stories and names. All of these work together to bring out a sense of Indianness in the game along with maps inspired by exotic Indian locales like Rajasthan and Andaman.

Discussing development and future

As usual, being a fan of the genre, my curious question about the release was presented. Deepak was honest about the work in progress but mentioned the work that has to be done.

FAU-G: Domination is at the stage where they can show it to our peers and critics for feedback, as they did at the recently concluded Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and last year’s India GDC. While the initial overall response has been surprisingly positive, “we do believe there’s some work to be done in terms of polishing and tuning before we can give a release date“, clarifies Deepak.

At this date, he didn’t reveal anything about the release. Pre-registrations should open soon and has asked the viewers to stay tuned for further announcements.

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