“Gaming in India is full of competition and passion but lacks structure.”
Krafton has unveiled its new unified competitive gaming platform, Battlin, during a press conference at BMSD 2026. Battlin’ lets people host, find and compete in tournaments easily all through one app. IGN India was also present at the press conference, where we were able to talk to James Yongkwan Kim, Lead of Battlin, and also got a hands-on test of how the app works.
Krafton explained that the app can be used by players to find tournaments and groups to play with within these tournaments. Alongside these, any individual or company will also be able to host tournaments while being able to keep track of team scores and more on the same app, making it a one app for everything, including tournament discovery, participation, hosting and management.
Kim explained at the press conference that people will be able to host three types of tournaments on the app, including:
Stage 1: Casual tournaments alongside friends or people you know.
Stage 2: Larger-scale tournaments on the app where anyone can join, but there won’t be any prize pools attached to it.
Stage 3: Full-fledged tournaments where prize pools are attached, but the organisers and sponsors for the tournament are vetted by the Battlin’ team.
To mark its launch, Battlin is hosting Battlin Open Season 1. Players can register through the platform until November 1, 2026, with more than 5,000 slots available. Starting November 2, the competition will feature two tracks and conclude with the Track 2 Finale on November 29.
At the moment BGMI is the only game that is supported by the app. Kim said that if they get the opportunity to add other games to the app including non-Krafton titles, then they will.
BMSD 2026 Qualifiers Week 1 Images
The devs also explained that Battlin is also going to have a leaderboard system that records players’ wins and their rank in the system. They say that app helps maintain concrete data about a player, including leaderboards, wins, ratings, and even history of cheating, which would help them gain recognition and even give them a chance to move on to bigger official tournaments.
There will be no entry fee required to be given for any tournaments hosted on the app, and the tournament organisers will be vetted by the Battlin team. Kim explained that prize money will not be given out by the organisers themselves but through Battlin’s team.
The Battlin lead also expressed that fair play is an important part of Battlin’s ideals, so on the topic of cheaters, he explained that while he cannot go into specific technologies, Krafton is testing AI tools which will be able to capture suspicious behaviour by players in-game, and a “pre-game evaluation” can help determine if a phone is jailbroken or the BGMI app has been downloaded through less than legitimate means.
BMPS 2026 Grand Finals Images
Kim explained that the reason they created an app like this was because, through their research, they noticed “gaming in India is full of competition and passion but lacks structure.” With the app, they hope to create a stronger community around competitive gaming in India, which Kim explains would then also create a “fair, transparent and clean culture” in the scene.