How Garena Free Fire plans to stand out from the battle royale crowd
James Batchelor
Editor-in-Chief
Thursday 27th January 2022
Garena
Garena Free Fire is a name that frequently appears in reports and infographics about the global mobile games market, but rarely grabs headlines in the games media -- at least in the West.
Developed and published by Singaporean games firm Garena, the title is not just another contender in the mobile shooter and/or battle royale space; it's actually one of the most successful.
In fact, according to App Annie, Garena Free Fire has been the most downloaded game in the world for three years running, and last year was behind only PUBG Mobile, Roblox and Candy Crush Saga in terms of monthly active users. Garena tells us MAU reached a record high of 150 million in its latest quarter.
"It has definitely surpassed our wildest imaginations back when we started the game," says producer Harold Teo.
"Free Fire has definitely surpassed our wildest imaginations back when we started the game"
"When we developed Free Fire, we wanted to create something that was specifically for the mobile phone, and something that could engage a wide audience. Smartphone penetration was increasing, and we could tap into a lot of players."
Following Garena's work as a publisher, which started in 2009, the company decided to internally develop a title of its own. Teo says development began in 2014, and the result was Free Fire. The game eventually launched in August 2017 -- six months ahead of the mobile version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, although five months after the original PC version.
Since our interview with Teo, Krafton has actually filed a lawsuit against Garena, as well as Apple and Google, claiming Free Fire is "blatantly infringing" on PUBG. We reached out to Garena and a
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