Aeos Games on Unleash the Avatar and India's Gaming Future

Bengaluru-based Aeos Games is attempting something that very few Indian studios have tried before. They are building a full-scale, premium Soulslike rooted in Indian mythology, built entirely without publisher backing.  The studio's debut title, Unleash the Avatar, puts players in the role of Vikram, a warrior navigating an alternate high-fantasy version of ancient India populated by Asuras, Rakshasas, and the servants of gods. 

The studio just revealed a new combat trailer at Bilibili Game First Look, and alongside it, confirmed that Johnny Yong Bosch, the voice behind Persona 4's Yu Narukami, Bleach's Ichigo, and Devil May Cry's Nero, will voice Vikram. Outlook Respawn spoke to Rohan Mayya, CEO and co-founder of Aeos Games, to find out how it all came together.

Why Bilibili Before the West

The new combat trailer debuted at Bilibili Game First Look, a showcase hosted by the Chinese entertainment and gaming platform, rather than a Western-facing event. When asked why Aeos chose to promote their game via Bilibili, Maya revealed, "The Chinese audience has been nothing but nice to us. They always come with nuanced feedback and are encouraging of our work. They love movies like RRR, Dangal, and other Bollywood and Tollywood films. I think if they find a game that's a similar tone, they'll really like it, hence the traction."

The Chinese audience has a known appetite for Indian cinema, with emotionally heightened stories built around heroism and cultural spectacle. This naturally maps into what Unleash the Avatar is trying to be. It is a mythological Indian soulslike with high production values and a story built on cosmic stakes. The West may be the long game, but China appears to be where the immediate energy is for Aeos’ market. 

Getting the Gameplay and Story Right

The Unleash the Avatar gameplay trailer puts the protagonist Vikram against Kinkara, a servant of Yama, the Hindu god of death and justice. The combat implements Souls-like mechanics such as dodge and parry, alongside innovations specific to Aeos's design, including a ranged chakra attack and a feather prism. 

The combat system has been the hardest part to get right, Mayya says. Eight months of closed-door development since the alpha previews have been largely consumed by getting the foundations solid. He quotes the studio's lead engineer Rishi Khanna on the underlying philosophy, "Building a Soulslike is like building an animation engine. Everything supports ensuring the animations are expressed appropriately." The enemy AI is centrally tuned to punish or apply pressure based on posture, a system that sounds straightforward and requires enormous iteration to feel right in practice.

The game mechanics are wrapped by grand Indian mythology. However, Aeos is not willing to spill the beans about how the game’s lore will shape out just yet. Speaking about the narrative, Mayya said, "Our story is a very loose interpretation of cultural elements. Although rooted in mythological stories, you will notice characters like a Kathak dancer, a Therukoothu actor and dancer, a half-man half-goat boss. India has a rich, culturally saturated colour palette with the kind of diversity we have that has not been captured in games before. Our culture will be portrayed in the best possible manner."

Self-Publishing an Ambitious Game

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Unleash the Avatar is not what it is but what it has been built without. The studio has no publisher, no external investor, and a team that Mayya is careful to describe accurately. Mayya said, "The team is not as big as people are expecting. We are perhaps 30 core members, with five to ten helping us part time. That is a very lean team for the kind of ambition we have, considering other big games have upwards of 50 to 100 developers."

He also notes something that does not often get said openly - many of the team members are new to game development or have not previously worked on a project at this scale. "It's miraculous how far we've come. Rest assured they will all be very big in the industry one day." The self-funded model works in part because the team is lean enough to sustain it. Staying small has been both a constraint and a source of discipline.

The game is being built in Unreal Engine 5 with in-house photogrammetry scanning from historic towns across India. The team is using full-body motion capture, and bespoke enemy AI systems. Mayya is explicit that the project uses zero generative AI, has no battle passes, and no daily grind systems. "A premium, handcrafted experience" is how the studio describes it. 

Onboarding a Legendary Voice Actor

When Rohan’s brother Varun Mayya walked into his office one day and said they should get Johnny Yong Bosch to voice the protagonist of their game, Rohan's first reaction was scepticism. 

They reached out anyway. It turned out that Bosch had already watched the previous Unleash the Avatar trailer. He was interested and came in for his first session and impressed Aeos.. Mayya revealed, "He did a killer job on literally his first session and we were all so impressed. So we knew it would just work."

Voice casting for a protagonist in a Soulslike is a different kind of challenge than most games present. The characters rarely speak and are completely silent protagonists in some cases. Bosch, who has spent decades bringing anime and game characters to life, understood that instinctively.

Mayya described Bosch’s work ethic, stating, "He was quite hands-on. Johnny is a very passionate voice actor who has brought life to many characters in the past. We kept the actual voice lines minimal, there were maybe a handful, but the grunts, struggles, and the moves really infused life into the character."

The casting raises an obvious question about authenticity among many. Bosch is an American actor, known for decades of work in Japanese animation and Western games. Mayya is approaching this carefully by direct a “somewhat neutral accent” for the protagonist. He said, “Black Myth: Wukong took Chinese mythology and delivered it to a global audience without compromising its cultural grounding, and its English dub used the same logic Aeos is applying here. The story belongs to its culture.” 

An Indian language dub is part of the production plan. Aeos is hoping to connect with the global audience while also delivering something special to its home audience. Unleash the Avatar is currently available to wishlist on Steam. The game is in development for PC.