FP StaffOct 20, 2022 18:01:46 IST
PUBG Mobile was one of the most popular games across platforms in India, before it was banned. Similarly, the refreshed and India-specific BGMI or Battlegrounds Mobile India too was the most popular battle royale game in the country, before it was banned for having convoluted connections with the Chinese state.
Reports suggest that BGMI may be relaunched by the end of this year. However, there have been no signs from Krafton or anyone else from the game publishing industry that the game is being prepared for a relaunch. Image Credit: Krafton
In July this year, the app was simply removed from the Google PlayStore and the Apple App Store. Technically speaking, the game was banned much later in India, in the month of September.
Reports have started surfacing now, that the game will be making a return in a completely new avatar, with new publishers, and will soon be available in India again. There are speculations which suggest that BGMI may be rebranded and relaunched in the country by the end of the year.
In all likelihood, the game will be relaunched under a new, India-specific arm of Krafton, the South Korean game publisher who had developed PUBG Mobile and then cut all ties with Tencent. The servers, as well as the data generated from the game, will have to be geographically located within the sovereign borders of India if it is to be relaunched. This is something that Krafton had agreed to earlier, back when BGMI was relaunched as PUBG.
Realistically, if the game was to be launched by the end of the year, we would have seen some sort of an official announcement or a teaser at the very least announcing something similar by now. Given that we haven’t seen anything of that sort, it would be safe to assume that if indeed BGMI is being relaunched, it will most likely take place in mid-2023.
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