Is Free Fire Dead: A look at the game’s playerbase in 2024

Free Fire is one of the most famous mobile games out there. The game was released back in December 2017, even before PUBG Mobile had come out. At that time, the game was competing with Rules of Survival, another popular BR title for mobile. Now, more than six years later, many players have asked the question: Is Free Fire Dead? Here’s the answer to that.

Since the release of Free Fire, the game has set itself apart from the competition in one way. And that is by being very accessible. Unlike PUBG Mobile, the game works with very low specifications and is thus more popular in developing countries within Southeast Asia and Latin America. So much so that Tencent even released a scaled-down version of PUBG Mobile with lower specifications called PUBG Mobile Lite.

But, how is the game performing today? Here’s the answer to that question.

Is Free Fire Dead?

There is no way to know the active player count for Free Fire. Only Garena, the developer, is aware of that. However, the game has more than 1 billion downloads worldwide, an achievement that it received back in August 2021.

Since then, however, the game has been banned in its most popular country, India. The Indian government reportedly banned Free Fire for alleged data privacy concerns. This led to a sharp for in the overall active users for the title. Nonetheless, the game is still strong in other regions.

Thus, the game isn’t dead at all, although, of course, the game’s player base has been fluctuating. One way to look at this is through the game’s esports tournaments.

Back in 2021, the Free Fire World Series (FFWS) Singapore achieved a peak viewership of 5.4 million viewers, which, at the time, was a record for a single esports tournament. However, the recently concluded FFWS 2023 had a peak viewership of 570,000. This number is still a very good figure but represents a sharp fall in the overall viewership for the glorious mobile BR title.

Additionally, Garena has announced Free Fire India, which will be released soon. This will also bring a lot of players to the game.