Can Free Fire players play Sigma Battle Royale in January 2023?

In November 2022, a new Battle Royale offering, Sigma, got popular among Free Fire fans. The reason behind its sudden fame was its numerous similarities with the Garena-backed survival shooter, which also earned the game an unofficial title: "Free Fire Lite."

Another reason the game got immensely popular was due to its compatibility with low-end devices and a download size of 280 MB. Unfortunately, it soon became unplayable as the developers took the title's servers down. The game is still under maintenance as of January 2023, which means one cannot play it.

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Sigma Battle Royale, popularly known as Free Fire Lite, is unplayable due to unavailability of servers

Sigma Battle Royale has been under maintenance indefinitely per this message (Image via Studio Arm Private Limited)

Players who installed Sigma Battle Royale a while ago will encounter a pop-up regarding the maintenance break. The developers' message indicates the unavailability of game servers. This is what it says:

"The server is closed. Thank you for being a part of this test and we look forward to seeing you again in the near future."

The note, though, doesn't clarify when the game will become playable.

Error text which is showing up after installing Sigma Battle Royale for the first time (Image via Studio Arm Private Limited)

Players who have recently installed Sigma on their devices will be unable to access the game due to a download error. The relevant message can be seen in the above screenshot.

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Why was Sigma Battle Royale linked to Garena Free Fire?

Sigma is not a product from developer Garena, as it is backed by Studio Arm Private Limited. However, many fans linked the game to Garena's BR game because both titles have insanely similar graphics. Moreover, their gameplay, weapons, maps, and certain other aspects also seem identical. Hence, Sigma was regarded as a "FF/FF MAX clone."

Interestingly, the identical features also became the reason for Sigma Battle Royale's downfall, as it was removed from the Play Store for reportedly being a replica of Free Fire. It was a violation of Google's Developer Program Policy, which is why Sigma barely completed 48 hours in the Play Store before getting taken down.

Sigma's APK files are available on multiple websites after the game's removal from the Play Store (Image via Google)

However, before Google removed the title from the platform, it clocked more than 500K installs, having been available via early access. Post its expulsion, many unauthorized websites started showcasing the APK's download links due to the considerable popularity of FF Lite.

One should avoid downloading Sigma Battle Royale APK from any unofficial source. The key reason here is the absence of Google Play authentication. Moreover, downloading any file from an unverified or dubious source could lead to the inadvertent installation of malicious files.

Instead of downloading Sigma Battle Royale, one can go for similar games like Free Fire, which are available on the Play Store.