Free Fire India ban roundup and timeline: Everything that happened so far

Free Fire has been the buzz of the gaming community in India for the past few days. Garena's flagship title has received a great deal of attention due to the events that have transpired within the past few days.

For those unaware, the battle royale title was removed from both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Later, it was part of the 54 banned apps as per a list published by the Government of India. A timeline of the events is provided below.

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Timeline of all events that have happened related to the Free Fire ban

Login issues (Morning – 12 February)

Login issues started in the morning of 12 February (Image via Facebook)

It all started with login issues for the players on specific networks. This disabled them from accessing their favorite battle royale title, and they encountered an error on their screens.

The following was the developers' statement after the issue was brought to light:

"We're aware about the issue and getting it investigated. In the meantime, please share your Network Provider name and also if you're using mobile data or Wi-Fi to launch the game."

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Removal from the Apple App Store (Afternoon – 12 February)

In the afternoon, with no justification, the game and its improved version were removed from the Apple App Store after only a few hours of login issues. Consequently, players were perplexed, and it was at this point that numerous speculations began to circulate across the internet.

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Removal from Google Play Store (Evening – 12 February)

The game was then removed from the Google Play Store (Image via Sportskeeda)

Following its initial removal from the Apple App Store, the battle royale game was also removed from the Google Play Store, making it inaccessible for download on the Android platform as well. However, Free Fire MAX is not withdrawn as of now.

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List of banned apps (Morning – 14 February)

On 4 February, players' worst concerns came true when a list of banned applications emerged during the morning. It featured the name of Free Fire and various other games, such as Rise of Kingdoms.

It was a devastating blow to the game's fan base, who have subsequently been hoping for the possibility of an unban, which is very unlikely to happen soon.