Asphalt sequence has constructed a gentle following in India through the years, with mobile-first arcade racing that runs nicely even on mid-range gadgets. The franchise has had a visual presence within the nation with native tournaments and occasions.
With Asphalt Legends introducing a devoted India monitor in December 2025, the studio has now rolled out a Holi-themed Highlight occasion constructed round it. The replace provides customised menus, festival-inspired visuals, limited-time decals, and a multi-stage Collector’s Mode occasion. We spoke to the builders through electronic mail about how they approached cultural authenticity, what gameplay adjustments gamers can count on, and what this implies for Asphalt Legends going ahead.
The India monitor was launched in December 2025 with Holi-inspired colors already built-in into the countryside atmosphere. For this devoted Holi occasion, what particularly are you trying to embrace? Did the workforce work with cultural consultants or members of the Indian group to make sure genuine illustration of the competition’s traditions and symbolism? Past visible transformations, what distinctive gameplay mechanics or occasion constructions have you ever carried out that seize the spirit of Holi, equivalent to playfulness and the celebration of spring?
The brand new India monitor allowed us to deliver the Holi Competition occasion to a better degree in comparison with what we had performed prior to now, offering the right atmosphere to create an awesome highlight occasion. Gamers will enter the sport and uncover the occasion by a completely personalized menu, with Holi taking the highlight as the principle occasion in Asphalt Legends for a whole month.
For this occasion, we designed two automobile decals. One is for the Toyota GR Supra Racing Idea and remembers the colourful impact of the long-lasting Holi powders. The opposite is for the Pagani Utopia Coupé 2023 and, along with incorporating the colours of this wonderful celebration, encompasses a striped sample impressed by the image of energy, energy, agility, and beauty, India’s nationwide animal, the Bengal tiger.
The occasion will probably be performed by a number of levels in Collector’s Mode, the place gamers might want to acquire gadgets on the monitor. These collectibles explode in colours when collected and have a design impressed by the gorgeous mandala artwork.
Genuine illustration and cultural respect have at all times been our precedence. Now we have been in touch with members of the Indian group, and for the reason that begin of manufacturing on the India monitor, this relationship has grown even stronger.
The India monitor launched simply two months in the past in Vacation Overdrive. What’s your philosophy on how rapidly you remodel a newly launched monitor for a serious cultural occasion? Did you at all times plan for the India monitor to host a Holi celebration, or was this a responsive determination based mostly on the timing?
Once we began the manufacturing of the India monitor, our foremost precedence was to create an atmosphere that would showcase among the stunning landscapes India has to supply, mixed with its wealthy historical past and introduced right into a racing universe. In the course of the design course of, we had been occupied with how we may enrich the expertise even additional, and we already had in thoughts among the main Indian festivals, like Holi, which has a really robust and distinctive id and visible attraction. That is why we seemed for tactics to include a few of its visible components into the monitor.
Incorporating essentially the most iconic coloured powders into the monitor wanted to really feel genuine and convey the identical sense of pleasure and pleasure that defines this joyful competition. That is why we paid explicit consideration to the visible results and their placement, fastidiously designing moments that would draw the participant’s consideration for a second and create a way of marvel, even throughout intense racing.
One instance is the lengthy straight highway resulting in the principle statue, the place shade explosions on either side of the road accompany the participant by this part of the monitor, making a hanging and memorable scene.
When the colours hit the automobile, we wished them to remain on its floor, simply as they might stay on the garments throughout Holi celebrations in Indian streets. We additionally designed the on-screen results to remain seen for a short while, permitting gamers to totally expertise the feeling of being immersed in an actual cloud of colours.
In previous years, we’ve performed varied occasions themed round Holi. Nonetheless, this time we wished to pay homage to our robust Indian group by doing one thing greater, now that we had the right setting.
What was essentially the most difficult a part of this challenge for the workforce? What’s the one factor that the workforce is most pleased with, and what’s one thing that you really want gamers to note?
For the reason that manufacturing of the India monitor, discovering the correct stability between intense arcade racing, with vehicles drifting, leaping, and crashing far and wide, and nonetheless being respectful of the environment was a key goal for us.
We spent a major period of time researching essentially the most appropriate atmosphere for our races. Selecting from the huge biodiversity India has to supply was not a easy activity. Much more time was spent conducting in depth analysis on temples and architectural constructions to create essentially the most genuine setting doable, fastidiously inserting them in key areas all through the monitor to supply stunning views, keep environmental coherence, and guarantee correct respect for these culturally important landmarks, all whereas gamers race at excessive velocity to beat their opponents.
Lighting was one other main problem. This monitor options all kinds of environments, from racing underneath direct daylight, to drifting by dense palm forests, to dashing inside pure caves. Balancing the lighting throughout such numerous settings required cautious work to make sure constant visibility all through the race. In spite of everything, if you’re racing at 300 km/h, you don’t wish to hit one thing you couldn’t see coming, until it’s your opponent… in that case, it’s a part of the competitors! The implementation of the Holi competition’s iconic visuals wanted to be fastidiously studied to make sure they had been coherent with the atmosphere and felt genuine. This undoubtedly helped create a stronger visible id in some components of the monitor, giving gamers a greater and extra thrilling expertise.
We’re particularly pleased with how the occasion transforms the monitor into a real celebration and we hope gamers will recognize much more the work now we have performed to deliver such a joyful competition into Asphalt Legends.
India is clearly an essential marketplace for Gameloft; You might have beforehand partnered with Nodwin Gaming for occasions. How does this Holi occasion match into your broader technique for the Indian gaming group?
Asphalt has a big and enthusiastic participant base in India, together with quite a lot of streamers of all sizes, content material creators and extremely gifted professional gamers. We noticed this once more after we launched our newest monitor to nice assist, however for Asphalt the Indian gaming group has demonstrated quite a few instances how current and engaged they are often, and the way critically they will take gaming. We have been working with a wide range of companions in India as you identified, to create gaming leisure content material or eSports occasions – sharing our respective information has allowed us to have occasions that resonate extra with the native scene.
On Holi particularly, each it and Diwali have been a part of our in-game occasions calendar for years, we have made it some extent to have a good time yearly and cook dinner up particular presents, in addition to take part on celebrations organized by the varied platforms Asphalt is out there on. This yr although we’re cranking it up a notch, after releasing our latest India monitor we actually wished to make one thing particular for Holi which is why we ready a whole devoted Highlight occasion, with devoted UI and customized in-game animations, decals and extra. We have been receiving plenty of love from the Indian aspect of our group, and we intend to provide again to a (giant) group of gamers who’ve turn into one of many pillars of the playerbase.
How are you balancing cultural specificity with international accessibility? What components do you suppose will resonate with gamers unfamiliar with the competition?
We imagine {that a} celebration like Holi, centered round shade, pleasure, and togetherness, carries values that may be universally shared and translate very naturally right into a racing expertise.
This common Indian competition has a approach of pulling individuals in, no matter in the event that they’re aware of it or not. The colourful colours, the vitality and the sense that anybody is welcome to affix in is what makes it really particular. It’s that very essence of celebration that we’ve tried to seize and imagine creates a way of shared pleasure for gamers throughout the board.
Alternatively, for individuals who not solely love the competition however affiliate it with actual reminiscences and traditions that maintain a particular place of their lives, we knew that authenticity was non-negotiable.
The colour explosions on the monitor, the automobile decals and the broader visible aesthetic are all impressed by and draw from actual cultural references. We wished the occasion to spark recognition and delight for the gamers who maintain that connection to it.
In the end, our objective for the occasion was for it to work on each ranges directly: culturally grounded sufficient to really feel significant and visually and experientially inviting sufficient for anybody discovering Holi for the primary time to really feel instantly drawn in. Briefly, it is a celebration and everyone seems to be invited!
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Rayan Sayyed is a workers author for IGN India with a main concentrate on tech and leisure, spanning from anime, manga, video games to movies and every part in between. You’ll be able to attain out to him at rayan_sayyed@ign.com, or discover him on Twitter/X @rayanaver and Instagram @rayansayyed
