Garena Free Fire illuminate: Is the app Chinese or Singaporean?

Free Fire has surprisingly been suspended by the Government of India in another ban wave. Previously, they have banned games such as Mobile Legends, PUBG Mobile, and other Chinese applications on the grounds that they posed a threat to the country's national security.

Consequently, this has led to a lot of uncertainty regarding the origin of Garena's battle royale title, with numerous users being confused about whether it is a Chinese or Singapore-based application. That's what we will clarify in this article.

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Is Free Fire a Chinese app or a Singaporean app?

Garena are the publishers of the popular battle royale title (Image via Garena)

Free Fire is published by Garena, which is part of SEA Limited, which is based in Singapore and was founded in 2009 by Forrest Li. As such, Singapore can be considered as this particular battle royale title's country of origin.

The game was initially released in 2017, and since then, it has gained widespread attention, becoming one of the most widely-played mobile titles across the country. To provide an even better experience, a superior version (Free Fire MAX) was released in September 2021, featuring better graphics, animations, and more. But surprisingly, it wasn't on the list of applications banned.

However, users can note that Tencent, a Chinese conglomerate, which has a significant share in Krafton and owns TiMi Studios (COD mobile developers), also has an 18.7% stake in Garena.

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Fan reaction to Free Fire ban

The game's community has been devastated because the government decided to impose a ban on their favorite game. However, many of them are pleased to discover that the Max version is still available for download from the Google Play Store and can be played without any problem.

Here are some of the reactions on Twitter:

Additionally, many people waited for Garena's response on the suspension, which was finally shared with the public.