The Free Fire esports roadmap for 2023 took a major change as it was announced earlier this year that only one World Series (FFWS) will take place. In past years, Garena has been organizing two FFWS per calendar year to give fans two major LAN events per season.

Now, the anticipated FFWS 2023 has been announced, and it is set to happen in Bangkok, Thailand again. Here’s everything you need to know about the competition.

FFWS 2023 returns to Bangkok as 18 teams to compete for the title of world champions

The Free Fire World Series (FFWS) will take place from Nov. 10 to 26. It has been split into two stages: the group stage and the Grand Finals. The schedule for these is as follows:

Group Stage: Six match days between Nov. 10 to 19
Grand Finals: Nov. 24 to 26

In the group stage, the 18 teams will be split into three groups of six teams each. Two groups will play at a time in a round-robin format. The top 12 teams from here will advance to the Grand Finals to battle it out for the title of world champions.

Here’s the slot distribution

Garena has revealed 16 of the 18 slots of the FFWS 2023 in Bangkok. These are as follows:

Brazil: Top three teams from the Brazilian Free Fire League (LBFF) 2023
Latin America: Top three teams from the Free Fire League Latin America 2023
Thailand: Top three teams from the Thailand Pro League 2023
Indonesia: Top two teams from the Free Fire Master League Season 8
Vietnam: Top two teams from the Vietnam Free Fire League Summer 2023
Malaysia, Cambodia, The Philippines, and Sri Lanka (MCPS): Winner of the MCPS Majors Season six
Pakistan: Winner of the FFWS Pakistan Qualifier
Middle East and Africa (MEA): Winner of the Free Fire MEA League Season seven

Garena has said that the remaining two slots will be announced at a later date. This has led to speculation on whether they could go to India. The South Asian country banned Free Fire back in February 2022, bringing an end to a flourishing esports scene.

However, the other version of the battle royale title, Free Fire MAX, is still playable in India and is getting regular updates. Last month, the first official esports tournament in this game was held in India, called the Free Fire State Wars. It remains to be seen if India gets a slot at the FFWS 2023.

Free Fire esports is struggling

The past two years haven’t been the greatest for Free Fire esports. The game was once the most popular mobile esport title in the world with an extensive esports scene. The World Series (FFWS) Singapore in May 2021 is still one of the most-watched mobile esports tournaments with a peak of 5.4 million viewers, per Esports Charts.

With such impressive viewership statistics, the game won the Esports Mobile Game of the Year in 2020 and 2021. However, since then, the viewership has sharply declined. We took a look at the reasons behind this in our article about Free Fire’s esports viewership.

Compared with the FFWS Singapore, the previous edition of the World Series peaked at about 354,000 viewers, a fall of more than 90 percent.

The FFWS 2023 will be a moment of reckoning for Free Fire esports as it will show if the decline has continued or has the viewership stabilized. The addition of India, if possible, would be a great boost to the game.

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