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Free Fire is a battle royale game developed and published by Garena for Android and iOS. It became the most downloaded mobile game globally in 2019. As of 2021, Free Fire had surpassed 150 million daily active users. Free Fire Max, a graphically enhanced version of Free Fire, was released globally on 28 September 2021.
Gameplay
In Free Fire, players control a character in a third-person perspective and use a joystick to move. The fire button allows them to shoot and throw items. The character can perform actions such as jumping, crawling, and lying down. During gameplay, players can utilize the "Gloo Wall" grenade as a form of cover to protect against damage.
Game modes
Free Fire has over 15 different game modes including Team Deathmatch, Clash Squad, Big Head, Explosive Jump, Cold Steel, Rampage, Pet Mania, etc. Aside from Battle Royale, Clash Squad, and Lone Wolf, other modes become available only during special events.
Battle Royale
This mode lets a maximum of 52 players land on a random island without weapons. All of them have to survive by eliminating each other using weapons and accessories that are found in the buildings. If players play this mode ranked, it will have an impact on their rank. There are six Battle Royale maps: Bermuda, Bermuda Remastered, Kalahari, Purgatory, Alpine, and NeXTerra.
Clash Squad is a 4 VS 4 mode. In this mode, players use in-game money to buy weapons and other items from a shop during preparation time, and then fight against the opponent team. As a best-of-7 mode, games last from four to seven rounds. A round is won when all 4 players of one team are eliminated, either by the other team or by environmental damage. As of 2022 the game uses the same maps as the Battle Royale mode. Clash Squad can be played both as Ranked and Casual.
Lone Wolf is either a 1 vs 1 or "duo" (2 vs 2) version of Clash Squad mode with more complex rules. Each side will have chances to choose equipment to be used in next 2 rounds. Rounds are played best-of-5. If both sides have won 4 rounds each, then final round will begin with both sides free to choose weapon of their choice. All players acquire basic items like vest and helmet by default from the start of the round. This mode takes place in its own map called "Iron Dome". Free Fire Craftland Editor Craftland let the players create their own Free Fire maps using an in-game builder. With the Craftland feature, players can create, share and play with the maps they created. It supports script editing for advanced customization which lets the creators have more freedom to work with their ideas. Players can add buildings, gameplay items, and decorations to the map as they want until the space limit reach the maximum level. There are two maps that players can use to make their designs.
Character system[edit]
Free Fire Character System Free Fire features a character system of 50+ characters. Each character has a unique skill which can be active or passive. Active skills can be triggered manually by an in-game button and passive skills are triggered automatically. Each character can equip 4 skills including the character's skill and 3 skills from other characters (one active skill and three passive skills can be equipped by a single character). Free Fire characters have unique backstories. A few of these characters were inspired by real-life celebrities whom Free Fire had collaborations with, such as Chrono from the collaboration with Cristiano Ronaldo, Dimitri & Thiva from the collaboration with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, A-Patroa from the collaboration with Anitta, Alok from the collaboration with DJ Alok and JBeibs from the collaboration with Justin Bieber. In the game, all characters can be acquired for free through the Link system.
Pet System
In Free Fire, pets can provide support to players during fights. As of 2023, the game features 21 different pets that players can choose to bring into battle. Each pet has a special ability that sets it apart from the others. Some of these abilities are passive and trigger automatically, while others are active and require manual activation. One of the pets in the game, Poring, was added as part of a collaboration with Ragnarok Online. Players can also customize their pets with skins and emotes.
Premise
Free Fire's premise is detailed in animated shorts and other materials published by Garena to promote the game. Free Fire Universe is the universe where the game, comics and stories take place. Each character has a different story and a family background and characters are connected to each other. There are three cities in the universe, called La Luna, Griza, and New Dawn where the characters live. Characters are divided into two factions: the Horizon and the Mambas. The Horizon is the ruling faction of the city where the rich and powerful people are while the Mambas are a liberation group against the Horizon. In 2022 Free Fire released the first short film, "How to Start a Fire", which featured the character Hayato Yagami.
Reception
The graphics were described as having "a benefit for mid- and low-specification phones", but a reviewer stated that "if games with good graphics are your thing then we don't recommend that you play Free Fire Battlegrounds. But if you like battle royale games and want to have fun with your friends, you should definitely play."
Tais Carvalho of Techtudo commented that Free Fire "prioritizes performance, making it a great choice for any type of device. The gameplay stands out and has enough content to entertain and offer rewarding combat." Regarding the progression of characters and skills, she said it is "a flashy add-on".
In the Google Play annual list of "Best Apps of the Year", Free Fire won in the "Best Popular Vote Game" category of 2019, being the most publicly voted in Brazil and in Thailand.
Garena Free Fire is one of the most popular battle royale mobile games, behind PUBG Mobile, Fortnite Battle Royale and Call of Duty: Mobile. It is particularly popular in Latin America, India and Southeast Asia. Free Fire was the fourth most downloaded game on the Google Play Store in the fourth quarter of 2018, and was the fourth most downloaded game worldwide in 2018 on iOS and the Google Play Store together. The title earned approximately 182 million downloads in 2018, making it the second most downloaded battle royale mobile game (above Fortnite Battle Royale and behind only PUBG Mobile), and grossed approximately $19.3 million in monthly revenues through December 2018, becoming a significant financial success for Garena. As of August 2021, Garena Free Fire has more than one billion downloads on the Google Play Store.
At the end of Q1 2021, Free Fire surpassed PUBG Mobile in revenues in the United States, generating $100 million in turnover as compared to PUBG Mobile's $68 million. Free Fire's revenues jumped by 4.5 times as compared to the same period for the previous year.
By November 2019, Free Fire had grossed over $1 billion worldwide. It went on to become the fourth highest-grossing video game of 2020 with $2.13 billion, and then the eighth highest-grossing mobile game of 2021 with $1.2 billion, for a total of at least $4.33 billion grossed as of 2021.
In 2020 and 2021 Free Fire won the Esports Mobile Game of the Year award at the Esports Awards.
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