"A beautiful story"
"An engaging, entertaining crime drama"
"A narrative powerhouse"
Story-driven indie action-adventurer
A Thug's Ascension is an indie low-poly narrative-driven action-adventure video game for Windows and macOS, written, directed, shot, designed, and coded by Adi Chandra, Director. Set in the dying city of Marathanagar (inspired from Mumbai), circa 2023, the game follows 'Chief', a feared mercenary, through a dark, slow-paced crime drama marrying cinematic, dialogue-driven storytelling with intense shooting and driving gameplay.
Diwangshu Kakoty, Under-Director, created the majority of the 3D assets in the game. PixelHole contributed as an additional 3D artist and Khaeops served in the development as optimisation engineer and music composer.
A Thug's Ascension released on Steam on 19 January 2024 through the British publisher Keymailer. Featured on IGN and at IndiaGDC, DevGAMM Lisbon, DreamHack Beyond, and other expos and festivals across the world, the game received positive reviews from both players and critics.
Watch the trailer
Step into the dying metropolis of Maratha as the feared mercenary ‘Chief', and join his gang of outlaws in the war against billionaire industrialist Dr. Sarkar and his violent attempts to rebuild the nation's greatest city in his own image. Told with a 47k-word screenplay by Adi Chandra, this is a story about loss, rage, community, and morality.
Dive into the gameplay
Under the story of A Thug's Ascension, there is a first-person shooter, offering combat, driving, exploration, and physics-based gameplay. Play through the fifteen intense missions which demand varying styles of gameplay, from trashing elaborate police raids and attacking a mob of marksmen to epic city-wide car chases and blowing up powerful fortresses operated by rival gangs.
