Akshay Kumar revealed that, shortly after the PubG was banned in India, FAU-G, PUbG’s replacement. The poster of the Multiplayer Action Game, announced on Twitter by the Bollywood star, was soon plagiarised by the Net users. The game developers nCore Gaming released a resolution to clear claims of plagiarism.

You would assume that with its similarity to PUBG, a game called ‘FAU-G’ would be under threat, but with a different cause, Akshay Kumar-backed game made headlines. The poster of FAU-G gave speculation when the picture appeared in several search results.

In line with PM Narendra Modi’s vision of “Atmanirbhar Bharat”, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar on Friday announced the launching of a multiplayer action-game, FAU-G.

The game, however, seems to have hit a wrong note with Twitterati, even before its release. As soon as the poster for the game was released, Twitter users pointed out a ‘lack of originality’ as it seemed as if the poster had been heavily ‘inspired’ by a stock image.

Twitter user @maximustaurean took to Twitter to share a screenshot of the stock image and alleged that the poster had been copied.

The only difference between the teaser poster and the original seems to be the Indian flag on the soldiers’ shoulders. And the original is, in fact, a stock image as per the statement in which Vishal Gondal, co-founder of nCore Games addressed the “ongoing conversations/rumours on social media that FAU-G was conceptualized by late actor Shri Sushant Singh Rajput”. Yup, there is somehow an SSR angle due to which #FAUGStolenFromSSR was trending on Twitter. So that’s that.

Gondal’s statement covered the company and the image’s details calling the rumours “false and baseless”.

The clarification checks out. Buying a stock image is perfectly legal and doesn’t infringe upon any copyright laws. But admitting the game poster was just a mildly edited stock image is a little embarrassing for the owners. FAU-G was announced a little too quickly after India banned PUBG along with 117 other China-made apps. The speed at which the game cropped up was a big question but now it looks like the announcement came much before a teaser or even in-game artwork could be put together.

The ban on China-made apps including Ludo All Star and HD Camera is a part of the Indian government’s decision to vet Chinese apps for data security breaches in the interest of cyber and national security.