With The Age of Bharat, here’s why Amish Tripathi’s playing games with us as he dives into gaming

The author is part of a team — that includes Amitabh Bachchan and an international gaming veteran — to bring India’s first AAA video game set in ancient India. Also now, he feels, he is finally cool

Here's why Amish Tripathi’s playing games with us

Amish Tripathi’s The Age of Bharat is the country’s first AAA video game that’s set in ancient India. Pic/Atul Kamble

Amish Tripathi’s books are read by millions, his podcast and docuseries are watched by millions more yet, but it’s only now, with his latest project — The Age of Bharat, the country’s first AAA video game that’s set in ancient India — that he feels like he’s finally “cool”.

The recent release of the game’s trailer piques our interest; we had no idea Tripathi was interested in gaming, we exclaim when we meet him at his Lower Parel office. “I’ll be honest, I’m not a gamer,” he says sheepishly, “But my 16-year-old son Neel is an avid gamer. When [London-based] Tara Gaming asked me to collaborate on a new game they were making, the first high-end game set in India, Neel was the one who said ‘Dad, you’re cool now!’ And that was one of my main motivators for taking on the project.”

The game is being developed by the UK-based studio, Tara Gaming, with three co-founders; veteran game developer Nouredine Abboud, Tripathi and another surprise entrant in the gaming sphere: actor Amitabh Bachchan.

Players will be able to take on the role of a forest warden and fight off invading rakshasas in the Dandakaranya region. Pics Courtesy/Tara Gaming

The trailer, which is out on YouTube, is a first look at the game that is expected to hit gaming platforms between late 2026 and 2027. Within seconds of hitting play, you can hear Bachchan’s unmistakable baritone, as well as spot Tripathi’s signature touch: the video is peppered with tributes to Lord Shiva — Tripathi’s favourite deity, who is at the centre of the Shiva trilogy that first brought the author fame. And there is the promise of a true blue, Amish Tripathi-style narrative driving the gameplay as you fight off — what else — rakshasas!

The Age of Bharat, he says, is set in the age of epics, specifically in the Ramayana era. “The physical setting is Dandakaranya, the forest where Lord Ram lived in exile. He has declared war on the rakshasas, and players get to play as a forest warden fighting off demons invading and pillaging the forest land.”
“The last games I played were Donkey Kong, Tetris, and Wolf, back when I was in B-school. In my defence, I’m 50,” he says, grinning. His audience, though, has always been predominantly young: mostly Millennials and Gen Z. “Most of my readers are the youth. It’s the same with my documentaries and podcast as well, but gaming has a kind of cool quotient which mediums don’t have. This is where kids are spending so much time. And one of the greatest privileges that storytellers seek is not money, but their audience’s time and attention.

“I’m not judging other popular games that involve stealing cars or shooting people, but here, you’re not just killing for the sake of it. You’re fighting the rakshasas to protect your people; there’s dharma in it,” he says, “You’ll have fun, but you’ll also get deeper into our culture. You’ll learn about life, how to make good choices.”

As a storyteller, of course, the switch in mediums requires a change in approach on Tripathi’s part too. “The demographic is the same, but the idiom of gaming is different,” he explains, “Most traditional media have a linear narrative approach. There’s a beginning, middle and end, and the author decides the path the reader will take. That’s where a video game is fundamentally different — the player decides what path they’ll take. As a storyteller, this makes it a bit complicated while figuring out where to put the twists and turns, because I don’t know what path you’ll take. So I have to set up this entire world and let the player pick their own path.”

India is yet to catch up to the rest of the gaming world, but with such a high-budget, high-profile AAA game, Tripathi is hopeful the country will soon blaze its own trail.

“Video gaming is actually the biggest creative industry; it’s bigger than movies, books, music, theatre combined. And India gets very little of the pie. So the very fact that we could have a proper top-end AAA game coming out of here will boost this industry dramatically out here,” he says, “Much of our gaming industry presently is mobile-game-dominated which has a large number of users but not enough revenue. The market is also dominated by Chinese games. But with our own game, we could actually bring revenue into the country and also export our culture.”

“Gaming is a great way to introduce people to your culture. A friend of mine had gone to Paris for the first time and his son, an avid gamer, was able to identify many of the places because he had played Assassin’s Creed Unity, which is set in Paris,” he says.

Apart from leveraging gaming as a soft power for India, Tripathi — a long-time proponent of supporting Hindi as well as the country’s regional languages — also hopes The Age of Bharat will be a chance for Indians to play a high-end game in their own mother tongue. “I am pushing for gameplay in Hindi and as many other Indian scheduled languages as we can manage. It would help so many more people to connect to the game,” he says.

Amitabh Bachchan an NPC?

No doubt, Amitabh Bachchan is going to do the game’s narration voiceover, but we turn to Amish Tripathi to confirm a little rumour we’ve heard that the actor might even feature in the game himself. “We’re considering it; I think it’ll be great fun to have him as a major NPC [non-playable character] who guides players,” says the author.

AI film on the cards

At some point, our conversation with Amish Tripathi turns to AI, and his eyes glimmer with excitement. “I want to make movies with AI. I have written so many stories, and they are all at a grand scale. My biggest problem is I have too many ideas for one lifetime. I write fast, but the time it would take [to adapt them to film] would still be an issue, and AI makes that possible. It’s really exciting for me,” he says.

We ask why, as an artiste, he’s not perturbed by the threat of AI, and he responds: “My approach to technology has always been that you can’t un-invent what has already been invented. AI is not going away. You can become roadkill, or you can figure out how to leverage it to your advantage.”