Krafton hands 16 rookies the captain’s armband for the BGMI Rising Star Invitational
Krafton India’s first Rising Star Invitational puts 16 of the country’s brightest young BGMI players in charge of squads stacked with established pros, over three days of action from July 3.
Jul 2, 2026
Krafton India will hand the captain’s armband to 16 of the country’s most promising BGMI players this weekend, with the first Rising Star Invitational running from July 3 to July 5. The catch is in who calls the shots. Each of those 16 Rising Stars leads a five-player squad, and the rest of every roster is filled out by established professionals. For once, it is the up-and-comers giving the orders.
How the invitational works
The 16 squads play across three maps over the three days, rotating through Erangel, Miramar and Rondo, and the team that racks up the most cumulative points is crowned the inaugural champion. The prize pool is five lakh rupees, and every match streams live on the Krafton India Esports YouTube channel. It is a points-based grind rather than a knockout bracket, so consistency across maps matters more than one hot lobby.
Putting a young player in charge of a room full of seasoned pros is the whole idea. A captain has to lock in drop spots, manage rotations and make the mid-game calls when a match is falling apart, all with more experienced team-mates watching how those decisions land. That is a far harder examination of a prospect than simply topping a kill chart in an open qualifier.
The Rising Stars Programme behind it
The event is the competitive centrepiece of Krafton India’s Rising Stars Programme, the pipeline the company built to find and fast-track the next wave of BGMI talent. It returned with a second cohort earlier in 2026 and wraps coaching, competitive exposure and national visibility around players who might otherwise be grinding in obscurity. The Invitational is billed as the first BGMI tournament built entirely around graduates of that programme.
Karan Pathak, associate director of esports at Krafton India, has framed the format as a way to spot the country’s next professionals and hand them genuine responsibility by dropping them into the captain’s seat against established names. The longer-term pitch is a clear route that runs from grassroots lobbies to the global stage.
Where it fits
The Invitational sits alongside Krafton’s established properties like BGIS, BMPS and the College Campus Tour, another rung on a domestic ladder that keeps adding steps. The timing helps too. With BMPS 2026 wrapped in Jaipur last month, where GodLike climbed from last place to the title, the fringe players get a stage of their own while the big teams catch their breath. The subplot worth watching is whether any of these captains turn a strong weekend into a permanent seat at a top org.