Garena’s Free Fire: Illuminate has been banned in India, along with 53 other apps linked to China, by order of the Indian government. Sensor Tower estimates that Free Fire: Illuminate and Free Fire Max were downloaded by over 238 million users in India before they were banned.
Also, in 2021, Free Fire ranked third among India’s most downloaded mobile games of that year. Along with ranking third in terms of downloads, Free Fire is estimated to rank top for revenue in 2021.
The enhanced version of Free Fire, Free Fire Max, has been removed from the Indian App Store but is still available on the Play Store at the moment. This version has reached 13 million installs in India between its September 2021 launch and the end of last year. Free Fire: Illuminate, on the other hand, had nearly 55 million downloads in India throughout 2021.
This isn’t the first time the Indian government has removed China-related games from its app stores. In September 2020, the government removed 118 mobile games from markets, including Tencent’s PUBG: Mobile. A year later, Krafton launched Battlegrounds India Mobile via Google Play.
