Indus Battle Royale
Indus Battle Royale is an Indo-futuristic battle royale game developed and published by SuperGaming. The game was launched worldwide on 16 October 2024.
Role: Level & Lead Level Designer
Responsibility
I was part of the core team that shipped Indus Battle Royale, leading development of the Virlok Map from early concept through live operations. Across each phase, with a young, thriving team, we expanded and refined the map based on structured community feedback, ensuring continuous improvement in gameplay experience and performance.
Leadership & Production Ownership
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Worked closely with the producers & game director to establish level design workflows, review pipelines, and production standards along with workflows that supported a growing team.
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Planned & managed level design tasks, sprint priorities, and review cycles to ensure timely, quality delivery.
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Onboarded & mentored level designers, helping scale the team.
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Coordinated cross-functionally with art, engineering, and design teams to maintain alignment between creative vision and technical execution.
Design, Technical & Operations
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Built the foundational levels and kits, along with a few initial levels to roll the direction and set a benchmark.
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Facilitated structured playtests and community feedback sessions via Discord, other social channels, and dedicated test labs.
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Stepped in as a technical level designer, optimizing layouts and workflows to meet mobile performance and memory constraints.
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Managed game builds and helped establish best practices across level design.
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Created and maintained level design documents.
Studio & Industry Impact
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Helped build the level design discipline within a fast-scaling studio environment, contributing to team structure, workflows, and standards.
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Played a key role in shaping production pipelines during a critical growth phase of the project.
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Presented production challenges and pipeline learnings at GDC, sharing insights on how level designers can avoid pitfalls while learning to build for mobile platforms.
It was a challenging yet deeply rewarding experience, driven by strong team synergy and a shared commitment for learning and raising the bar together.
Virlok
Virlok is a large-scale battle royale map set on a futuristic island within the world of Indus, designed around the core philosophy of Indo-Futurism, an optimistic vision of India’s future shaped by its culture, mythology, and technological advancement.
The concept explores a “what-if” scenario where ancient Indian civilization, particularly influences from the Indus Valley, evolved into a space-age society rather than fading into history.
The map presents a futuristic interpretation of India through architecture, landmarks, and environmental storytelling, blending traditional cultural identity with advanced technology. This creative direction was inspired by the same design philosophy behind Wakanda in Black Panther, where Afro-Futurism reimagined Africa as a technologically dominant civilization. Virlok applies that lens to India, portraying a world where Indian heritage and science fiction coexist seamlessly.
Set on floating islands on the planet Indus, Virlok serves as the primary battlefield where 60 players, known as Mythwalkers, compete for survival and control over rare resources such as Cosmium. The 3.5 x 3.5 km map combines diverse terrain types, including dense urban zones, industrial facilities, cultural landmarks, and natural landscapes, creating varied combat scenarios that support long-range engagements, close-quarter encounters, and strategic rotations.
From a level design perspective, Virlok was built to support large-scale player distribution, meaningful location identity, and evolving tactical gameplay. Each major point of interest was designed to serve a distinct gameplay purpose while contributing to the broader world-building narrative, reinforcing the vision of the futuristic Indian civilization that feels grounded, immersive, and globally relevant.
Below are the initial levels that I worked on.
Power Plant
Power Station is a futuristic industrial Point of Interest (POI). Thematically grounded as a high-tech sci-fi power station, the zone is built to facilitate intense, multi-squad drop phases and dynamic mid-game rotations, balancing visual appeal with gameplay mechanics.
Urja Valley
Designed around a sprawling central geodesic dome, the zone emphasizes high-mobility exterior combat and transitions between organic cover and structured technological outposts.
Kolar
Defined by a striking communication relay station at its peak, the level is designed to create highly directional, asymmetrical combat scenarios that test players ability to assault or defend elevated strongholds.
Refinery
Characterized by a sprawling network of interlocking pipes, heavy machinery, and expansive warehouse interiors.
This POI is designed to facilitate intense, close-to-mid-range engagements while demanding high situational awareness from players.
Team Death Match Mode: Saaplok Level (4v4)
Saaplok is a fast-paced, arena-style map built specifically for Team Deathmatch (TDM) and objective-based modes. Thematically designed as a vibrant, neo-traditional desert palace, the map is built on a strict mirrored layout to ensure perfect competitive balance, emphasizing constant momentum, tight lane control, and aggressive, close-quarters gunplay.
Mini Team Death Match Mode: Cache Level (2v2)
Video Credits: INDP Gaming
The Mini TDM map is a hyper-compact, high-intensity arena designed specifically for intimate 2v2 engagements and lightning-fast rounds. The map strips away the macro-rotations of Battle Royale to focus entirely on raw mechanical skill, split-second decision-making, and immediate combat friction.
Pre Prod: LD Pipeline Strategy
This presentation documents the pre-production challenges I navigated as a level designer, the cross-disciplinary workflows we established, and how we built a scalable design pipeline—evolving beyond our MaskGun approach. For production and post-production insights, see my GDC talk.