Free Fire India launches four years after the ban, with servers in India, playtime limits and spending caps

Garena has launched Free Fire India, a separate version of its battle-royale game for Indian players, on Wednesday 28 October, more than four and a half years after India banned the original, TechCrunch reported. The game is on Android and iOS, and user data is hosted on servers in India. "Free Fire India" is searched about 22,200 times a month in Pakistan alone, Semrush shows, a sign of how closely players here follow the game.

What is new in Free Fire India

• A standalone game, not an update to the original Free Fire app.
• Data kept in India, on local servers.
• India-specific content, plus parental controls, playtime limits and spending caps.
• Free Fire MAX stays. It remains available and shares accounts and events with Free Fire India, so players do not lose their progress.

Garena gave no in-game prices or details of the spending caps in the launch reported by TechCrunch.

Why it was banned, and why it took so long

India banned Free Fire in February 2022, along with 53 other apps, citing alleged links to China and national security. Garena is owned by Sea, a Singapore company; the ban wiped more than $16 billion off Sea's market value in a single day. A relaunch was announced for September 2023 and then postponed without explanation, and Garena has not said what changed this time.

The path mirrors PUBG Mobile, which India banned in September 2020 and which returned through Krafton's India-only Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI).

How big it is

Even with the original blocked, the Free Fire franchise, through Free Fire MAX, had about 77.4 million monthly active users in India in June, according to Sensor Tower figures cited by TechCrunch, against about 20.8 million for BGMI.

What it means for players in Pakistan

The launch does not change the Free Fire and Free Fire MAX apps players use in Pakistan; the India version is built for Indian servers and rules. What players here may notice is more India-focused events and esports, since Free Fire India's launch brings back one of the game's largest markets.

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