Everything you need to know about Free Fire fan base in India

Free Fire is one of the most popular battle royale mobile games in the world.

Developed and published by Singaporean company Garena, Free Fire is a free to play battle royale game and first released on December 8, 2017.  It is currently available for both Android and iOS users.

Free Fire has Battle Royale and Clash Squad as the two main game modes. In the Battle Royale mode, as many as 50 gamers are released on an island and must battle to be the last one standing. 

On the other hand, Clash Squad is a team-based mode where two teams of four players each compete against one another in a best-of-five series. 

Apart from these two game modes, Free Fire provides more than 15 game modes, including Team Deathmatch, Clash Squad, Big Head, Explosive Jump, Cold Steel, Zombie Hunt, Rampage, and Pet Mania. 

However, modes other than Battle Royale, Clash Squad, and Lone Wolf are only available during special events.

The popular game also offers an array of weapons, items, and vehicles that players can use to survive. The game also has a system of playable characters with unique skills.

The Free Fire has already surpassed 187 million daily active users as of 2023. 

While it also has a popular fan base in India, the Indian government banned 54 Chinese applications including Free Fire citing threats to national security and privacy and espionage concerns in February 2022.

In September, Garena announced that Free Fire will return to the Indian market and will be relaunched as Free Fire India. 

The Indian version of Free Fire will be tailored in accordance to the Indian audience and players. This new version will have safety features like prompts or reminders to take breaks, parental control, and time limits, to name a few. 

However, Garena Free Fire is yet to make its return to the Indian market after facing several postponements.

Free fire fan base in India

According to activeplayer, Free Fire had 195,708,068 monthly players and 13,047,205 daily players as of August 2023. The popular BGMI game earlier surpassed 150 million active users back in 2021. 

In 2019, Free Fire became the most downloaded mobile game worldwide and recorded more than one billion downloads on Google Play store.

While it is difficult to estimate the exact free fire fan base in India since it still hasn’t made its return to the Indian market following its ban, it is undoubtedly one of the most popular eSports games in the country. 

Some of the statistics that demonstrates Free Fire’s popularity in India includes the fact that before its ban in the country, out of the best 100 Free Fire streamers on YouTube in 2021, 31 were from India with more than a combined 128 million hours streamed.

Brazil had the second highest number of streamers at 30 during the same period and like India, the South American nation has a big Free Fire fan base in the football-loving country.

Furthermore, another significant point which showcases this eSports game’s popularity in India is that prior to its ban in 2021, the country’s best Free Fire streamer, Gyan Gaming had almost 18.3 million hours watched with 103,000 peak concurrent viewers. 

That said, here’s an overview of Free Fire’s overall active users since August 2022.

Free Fire active users since August 2022

Photo credit: Alamy