Who Made Garena Free Fire? The Journey Of India's 2nd Largest Battle Royale

2019’s most downloaded game on the Google Play Store, Garena Free Fire, has been growing steadily all over the world. It has claimed the 4th spot in the “most popular mobile battle royale” list, behind PUBG Mobile, Fortnite, and Call of Duty Mobile. In India, it is doing even better – beating both Fortnite and Call of Duty Mobile for the second spot. With its distinct attributes, Free Fire has provided gamers in India with a unique battle royale experience that differs from all its rivals.

In this article, we would tell you about how the game was made, who made it and what are its achievements over the years.

Free Fire’s Origin

To understand more about Free Fire’s origin, we must first talk about Garena, the company that published it. Originally, Garena was just a platform, made “By Gamers, For Gamers” in the early days of online video games in Asia. In those days, it is rather hard to play multiplayer games, as everyone pirates and there is no server. Garena solved that problem somewhat – as it gets bigger, the whole gig was bought by a company named Sea Limited from Singapore in 2009. Afterward, everything about the Garena flatform is stabilized and improved.

Over the years, they went from just distributing games (league of legends…etc) to make their own games, with Garena Free Fire being their first-ever title, released in December 2017, smack in the middle of the Battle Royale Craze.

Free Fire's Developments over the years

Free Fire was created by a Vietnamese developer called 111Dot Studios and released on both Android and iOS at the end of 2017. The game was just a face in the crowd at first – but due to Garena’s consistent investment and a talented developer tea, the game has risen through the rank and become a world-famous title.

2019 is probably its best year yet – as it became the most downloaded mobile game of 2019 in addition to the “Best Popular Vote Game” awarded by Google Play Store. As of February 2020, Free Fire has gathered 500 million downloads on Google Play Store, grossed over 1 billion dollars worldwide.

Why is Free Fire so popular?

The reason behind Free Fire’s success is its accessibility – the game is optimized at just the right range to fit the low-mid tier smartphones. This is pretty much 90% of India’s mobile gaming market. While you might not be able to play PUBG Mobile on your crap phone – Free Fire is here for all your low-graphics battle royale needs. Below is a video contain Free Fire's original closed beta gameplay back in 2017.

Interested in more of our posts related to Garena Free Fire? Please check out this article for information related to the next OB22 update.