Whether you have played Free Fire or not, you must have heard of this title before. It is one of the most popular battle royale games on mobile in the world. Free Fire is one of the earliest titles that have taken the battle royale gameplay to smartphones, even before PUBG Mobile.
The game features a lighter battle royale experience with a smaller map and fewer players each match. The graphics of Free Fire are also not as detailed as PUBG Mobile. It turned out to be a good thing because low-end devices can run the game smoothly. Free Fire also features many unique things such as the character system, the pet system, the skin system,...
All the things above have contributed to making the game one of the most popular mobile games in the world. In 2019, Free Fire earn the title "most downloaded game in the world" by Google Play Store. In 2020, Free Fire reached a peak of more than 100 million players in the world.
However, Free Fire didn't start with all of these things and it actually took Free Fire sometimes to become the game as we know it right now. Here, we will go back to the roots and learn about Free Fire history, who invented free fire game, which country it came from, and how it grew over the years.
Table of Contents
1. Who invented Free Fire game?
Gang Ye and Forrest Li are the 2 owners of Free Fire and thanks to the game, both of them have become millionaires.
Just by looking at the number of players in the game now, we can easily tell how big it is now. Free Fire hit a peak of 100 million daily players in October 2020. It also has 600 million downloads on the Google Play Store.
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Forrest Li - The More Well-Known Free Fire Owner
Forrest Li is the co-owner of Garena and more well-known than Gang Ye. He was born in Tianjin, China in 1977. The man later moved to Singapore. He got an MBA degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business and an engineering degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University. Forrest Li became a billionaire in March 2019 with a net worth of $1,8 billion.
Apart from gaming, Forrest Li who invented Free Fire game also invested in e-commerce businesses. He holds a total of 13,4% of Sea Ltd. His net worth is increasing rapidly thanks to the development of Free Fire.
In an interview, he revealed that he used the English word "Forrest" in his name because of the character Forrest Gump. Li was also inspired by the words of Steve Job, the famous CEO of Apple, "Stay hungry, stay foolish".
Forrest Li founded Garena in 2009. Garena means Global Arena, a platform for players everywhere to connect and complete.
The name "Garena" was later changed to "Sea" as it entered the New York Stock Exchange in 2017. However, to most gamers, we still called the company Garena because we have gotten used to it.
Like any business, Garena had a rough time when it first started with many debts. As of 2018, the company has a minus $961 million net but investors still manage to keep it alive. The company started making profits in 2019, the year Free Fire became the most download mobile game in the world on Google Play Store.
Forrest Li is now among the top 50 richest people in Singapore thanks to the success of his company and Free Fire.
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Gang Ye – The Co-Owner Of Garena Free Fire
Gang Ye was the founder of Sea Ltd, an Internet platform provider. The three major businesses of the company are Garena, Shopee, and SeaMoney. Mr. Ye only has an undergraduate degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University, but he is now among the top 50 richest people in Singapore with a total net worth of $900 million.
He became the chief operating officer of Sea Ltd in 2017 after having worked there as the chief technology officer for a long time. Free Fire was published by Garena the same year and earned Garena more than Rs 7,000 crore, tripled the net worth of Gang Ye.
While Free Fire is a free-to-play game, there are a lot of microtransactions. Players need to buy characters, pets, and skins to make them more powerful in battle. There are new updates every season with new characters, features, and skins that encourage players to keep buying more.
Apart from Free Fire, Gang Ye's income also comes from Shopee, an online shopping platform that is dominating all over the SEA region.
2. Which country does Free Fire belong to?
PUBG Mobile was banned from India because it was developed and published by Tencent. This has raised the question of many people about which country made Free Fire.
Free Fire was first developed by a Vietnamese studio, 111 Dots Studio, before Garena picked up the project and published it worldwide in 2017.
Garena is a company that is based in Singapore. Even though Tencent owns a large share in Garena, Tencent has nothing to do with the development of Free Fire it is not the developer or the publishers. Moreover, Garena owns multiple businesses, including Shopee, SeaMoney, and not only Free Fire.
The 2 founders of Garena are Forrest Li and Gang Ye, whose origins were Chinese, but they have moved to Singapore and become citizens of the country. Therefore, we can say Free Fire is from Singapore and not from China.
3. Evolution of Free Fire over the years
When Free Fire first got out of the Open Beta and got released on Google Play Store, the game looks much worse than it is now and is very basic. But over time, with some innovations and ideas, it started to stand apart from other titles.
Here we are going to look at the evolution of Free Fire all the way from 2017 and review all the most important updates of Free Fire.
Character system
The character system was added to Free Fire in early 2018 and this was a major breakthrough for the game. The first four characters that were introduced were Andrew, Kelly, Olivia, Ford. Now Free Fire has more than 30 characters and it is one of the features that make the game stand out.
Each character in Free Fire has a different skill and background story. You can even combine a total of 4 skills together to make a powerful combo.
>>> More details at: Full List Of Free Fire All Characters Skills
Pet system
The Pet system was added to Free Fire in early 2019 and it is an important feature just like the character system. There are currently more than 10 pets in Free Fire, each with different skills to aid you in battle and combo with your character.
Clash Squad mode
The Clash Squad mode was introduced to the game around the 2nd anniversary and it has become a major game now in Free Fire apart from the battle royale mode. There is even a separated Ranked Clash Squad mode for players to play competitively against other players with the same skill level.
In Clash Squad mode, instead of picking up weapons, you will have to buy weapons at the start of a round with the money you have. There will 2 teams opposing each other. Which team wins 4 rounds first will win a match.
>>> Read more: Top 5 Active Abilities To Use In Clash Squad Ranked Mode
Kalahari map
Kalahari is the latest map that was added to Free Fire. It is a desert map with rough terrain and many high locations. Along with Bermuda, Kalahari has been a map that is loved by many players and was used very often in big Free Fire tournaments.
Kalahari is much smaller than Bermuda with many more towns and buildings, making short-range weapons such as SMG and shotgun more useful here.
Elite Pass
The first Elite Pass was introduced to Free Fire in June 2018. This is one of the most updates in Free Fire because it offers players a great way to get items in Free Fire for a cheap price. All you have to do is pay about 600 Diamonds to buy the Free Fire Elite Pass and do daily missions to level up the Elite Pass. You will get rewarded with exclusive items each time you level up your Elite Pass.
A new Elite Pass will be introduced each month with a different theme and items than the previous ones. The Elite Pass is the best investment in Free Fire that all players need to get every season. There is also a free version but it will have fewer rewards.
4. Facts about Free Fire
While Free Fire is one of the most popular games in the world now, there are a lot of things that even people who have played the games for hundreds of hours don't know about. They are not elaborate mysteries at all, but sometimes the wrong information spread out even quicker than the truth and causes misinformation for many people.
Here, we are going to introduce to you some of the facts about Free Fire that many players are mistaken or don't know about.
Free Fire was not developed by Garena.
Since the name, Garena has tied with Free Fire ever since the game was released, many players mistake that Garena was the developer of Free Fire. However, in fact, Free Fire was developed by 111 Dots Studio, a Vietnamese studio. Garena later picked up the project and become the publisher of the game.
Free Fire was released before PUBG Mobile.
PUBG Mobile is the mobile adaptation of the famous battle royale game PUBG on PC. Since PUBG is the first battle royale game that has gone mainstream and started the battle royale trend all around the world, many people think PUBG Mobile must be the first battle royale game on mobile.
However, Rule of Survival was the first battle royale game on mobile. Free Fire came out soon later and PUBG Mobile came even later than Free Fire.
Free Fire was built on Unity Engine.
While PUBG Mobile was built on Unreal Engine 4, Free Fire was built on Unity Engine. What is the difference between these 2 engines?
It is very simple, Unreal Engine 4 makes PUBG Mobile looks more realistic and detailed but the game has a high hardware demand.
With the Unity Engine, Free Fire can be played on low-end devices even though its graphics are not as gorgeous as PUBG Mobile. This is why Free Fire is so popular in SEA and South Asia countries. Most people here don't have a high-end phone but they can still play the game smoothly on their phones.
Free Fire is very popular in Brazil and Russia.
It is no doubt that Free Fire is very popular in SEA and South Asia countries, but it is surprising that Free Fire is also very popular in Brazil and Russia as well.
The Free Fire esports scene in Brazil is actually very strong with many teams and huge sponsors. The champion of the Free Fire World Championship 2019 was also a Brazillian team. The Brazil server receives updates earlier than most other servers most of the time.
Free Fire recorded 100 million peak daily active players in August 2020.
Free Fire is one of the most popular battle royale titles on mobile in the world. It is the most downloaded game on Google Play Store in 2019 and it has reached an even higher milestone in 2020.
As of October 2020, Free Fire reported that the game has reached an all-time high of more than 100 million players daily. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, more people start to look for mobile games to play to kill time while they are in quarantine and this contributed a lot to this achievement of Free Fire.
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