India's Asian Games Esports Squad: No PUBG Mobile

India's 15-Player Contingent

India is sending 15 esports players to the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, spread across four titles. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports cleared the contingent in August.

• League of Legends: 6 players, captained by Akshaj Shenoy
• Pokemon UNITE: 6 players, captained by Adnan Mohammed Badshah
• eFootball: Chinmay Sahoo and Danial Shakeel Patel
• Puyo Puyo Champions: Paritosh, going alone

The Games open on 19 September, with the esports programme running from 23 September to 2 October at the Aichi International Exhibition Center in Tokoname. There are 11 medal events in total.

PUBG Mobile Is One Of Them, Minus India

PUBG Mobile is on that medal list, but India will not have a team in it. Back in March, the organisers of the National Esports Championships pulled PUBG Mobile out of India's qualifying pathway altogether. Naraka: Bladepoint went with it, and that one was dropped simply because barely anyone registered.

PUBG Mobile's case is messier. The game has been blocked in India since the 2020 app ban and never came back. Indian players compete on Battlegrounds Mobile India instead, the separate build Krafton made for the market, which was itself banned in July 2022 and returned in May 2023.

The Asian Games event runs on PUBG Mobile, not BGMI. With the regulatory position around the title and no competitive community playing that specific version, the federation concluded there was no national team to select.

Same Shape As Hangzhou

India sent 15 players across four titles to Hangzhou in 2022, when esports was first a medal sport. The titles have changed, the headcount has not. Esports Federation of India director Lokesh Suji called the clearance "a significant milestone for Indian esports" when it came through.

So the medal event exists, India's battle royale scene is massive, and the two simply do not connect this time around.