When Nouredine Abboud, a former Ubisoft producer and now CEO of Novaquark, was brainstorming potential ideas for a new game, Nicolas Granatino, President of Novaquark and Founder of Paris-based accelerator StemAI.vc, suggested looking Eastward.
With the recent success of the Chinese game Black Myth: Wukong, selling 20 million units in its first month alone, Eastern stories are proving to be insightful and novel to the gaming audience.
“We were exploring regions like the Middle East first, but that has already been explored in games like Prince of Persia. Eventually, we considered India, as we were awed by its mythos: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, to name a couple. And surprisingly, the stories were very modern,” Granatino tells YourStory.
To bring this vision to life, Abboud and Granatino sought a storyteller who could help adapt those tales into a fictionalised narrative for a game. The duo found the perfect collaborator in author Amish Tripathi—best known for The Shiva Trilogy and the Ram Chandra Series.
Thus, in 2024, Tara Gaming was born in Pune, with Abboud and Tripathi as co-founders and Granatino as executive chairman. Today, the studio employs an international team of 140 people, including 40 based in Pune.
Titled The Age of Bhaarat, the gaming company is creating one of India’s first AAA games—a type of game that has a large development budget and extensive marketing support.
The trailer for the game, launched earlier in May, was narrated by veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan, who also joined the startup as a co-founder, citing his “lifelong commitment to storytelling”.
“When I heard Amish’s and Nouredine’s vision, I was instantly drawn to the potential of creating something truly monumental. India has always been a land of powerful stories, and through this game, we have an opportunity to share our epics, creativity, and imagination with the world,” Bachchan says.
A still from The Age of Bhaarat. Source: Tara Gaming
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Reimagining the Ramayana
Granatino says The Age of Bhaarat is envisioned as a dark fantasy action-adventure RPG (role-playing game), set in a fictionalised world inspired by ancient Indian epics.
“The game is going to be a AAA game, which India doesn’t have yet. Something China didn’t have until Black Myth: Wukong last year. While that game relied heavily on action, our game will have more adventure, in the same vein as the Uncharted games,” he explains.
Tripathi says games like Prince of Persia, with its Middle Eastern setting, were always created from a Western lens. “The idea is to make something recognisably Indian yet globally accessible. So, I figured the only source materials upon which we can build such a story are our epics.”
However, the entrepreneurial novelist says that players won’t get to play characters, like Lord Rama, from the epics.
He explains, “What we are doing is keeping the Ramayana as the meta-narrative, where Lord Rama is fighting Ravana. But there is a micro-narrative, where in the forests of Dandakaranya, wardens are fighting the junior rakshasas—part of Ravana’s army. Players will get to play the micro-narrative.”
He adds that the key difference in writing a book and a novel is giving up control over the narrative. “In books, the author retains narrative control. The reader has to follow it. But in a game, the player decides where to go. So, instead of building a story, I will have to set up an entire universe. It’s a major mindset shift.”
To strike the right balance between Indian familiarity and Western accessibility, Tara Gaming’s writing room, led by Tripathi, included talent from various countries. “What’s obvious to an Indian might be incomprehensible for an American. A diverse team ensures that we maintain the accessibility of the narrative without losing its essence,” says Tripathi.
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Building India’s gaming ecosystem
Following the trailer launch, The Age of Bhaarat received strong global attention. Popular YouTuber and streamer Asmongold, with over four million subscribers, reacted positively, noting similarities to Black Myth: Wukong.
Granatino says the resemblance might stem from the fact that Sun Wukong, the Monkey King—the religious figure on whom Black Myth is based—is actually a descendant of Hanuman.
“In a way, Game Science (the game studio that created Black Myth) adopted Hanuman into their story. But all of that doesn’t matter. What matters is the richness of the story. We hope to do for India what Assassin's Creed did for Montreal or The Witcher for Poland,” he says.
The release of The Age of Bhaarat would help the Indian gaming industry, which has faced multiple hurdles while attempting to enter the AAA game market, with “development costs, investor scepticism, and tax”.
The executive chairman of Tara Gaming believes the gaming studio can accomplish it because it is “backed by investors who share our belief that Indian culture and epics deserve a place alongside global gaming blockbusters”.
Despite the ambition, the founding team understands that the Indian market is still dominated by mobile gaming. Accordingly, Tara Gaming plans to release a mobile version of The Age of Bhaarat in the future. While the alpha version for PC and consoles is scheduled for summer 2026, the final release is planned for Diwali 2027.
“Our strategy has always been franchise-first: console/PC AAA at the core, and then mobile, film, series, and other media to expand the universe,” explains Granatino.
Both Granatino and Tripathi believe Bachchan’s involvement signals a cultural shift: mainstream production houses are now looking towards the game industry.
“Amitabh understands that the Game Awards are six times bigger than the Academy Awards. He’s the first one to recognise gaming’s growing cultural power. You don’t stay at the top for such a long time without having foresight and intelligence,” says Granatino.
Tripathi adds with a laugh, “When Asmondgold reacted to our trailer, my son told me I’d finally ‘arrived’. And just like my son Neel, Amitabh Ji’s son Abhishek (the actor) is also a gamer; that connection helped spark his interest too.”
Another still from The Age of Bhaarat. Source: Tara Gaming
The road ahead
Competing with multiple gaming studios—be it an Indian independent studio like underDOGS or a global powerhouse like From Software—Tara Gaming sets itself apart through its commitment to bringing Indian myths to the forefront of fantasy games.
Granatino says the gaming studio has raised $20 million so far, and its model is “very much in line with how other major global AAA franchises have been built—typically with budgets north of $60 million over several years, thanks to Unreal Engine (a toolset developed by Epic Games and used for creating games).”
“We do plan structured funding rounds as we reach milestones such as the vertical slice demo, alpha, and more. As for revenues, our aspiration is clear: to make The Age of Bhaarat not just India’s first global AAA game, but also one of India’s largest cultural exports, on the scale of The Witcher,” he signs off.
Edited by Suman Singh
Original Article
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