Mayhem Studios, the gaming studio recently launched by unicorn gaming app Mobile Premier League (MPL), has unveiled its first gaming title called “Underworld Gang Wars”.  MPL had launched Mayhem Studios earlier this month to develop ‘AAA mobile games’ for domestic and global markets.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, the studio is being helmed by Ojas Vipat as CEO. Vipat as per his Linkedin profile previously worked in MPL’s product team since January 2021 and has also had stints at companies such as Tencent, Junglee Games, and DailyHunt among others.

The battle royale game will be set in India and revolves around the rivalry between two gangs, the company said. It claimed that the locations, the gangs and the icons represent an Indian context in a AAA game for the first time. AAA Games are typically video game titles that have big budgets for both development and marketing purposes. The studio said that UGW will be a free-to-play battle royale mobile game “rooted in India, built for Gangsters.”

“To provide an authentic experience, each region depicted in the game resembles a real location in India, be it the coal mines or the next-door apartment complex. It also has iconic landmarks including a fort, station, stadium and a racecourse” the company said in a statement. The game is expected to launch later this year with pre-registrations kicking off on May 22.

Indian gaming and esports market is dominated by international battle royale titles such as Krafton’s India customised Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and Activision’s Call of Duty Mobile.

Garena’s popular battle royale game Free Fire, which was the highest revenue-generating app across Google Play and Apple’s App Store in India last year, was banned by the Indian government on February 14, citing security concerns. PUBG, the global version of BGMI is included in Asian Games 2022 as a medal event.

Earlier, Pune-based game developer SuperGaming announced that it was going to launch a made-in-India battle royale game called Indus for mobile, PC, and consoles this year with Indian elements in the game.