5 things to know about billionaire Forrest Li's shooter game Free Fire
Free Fire is a popular last-man-standing online survival shooter game that can be played on any mobile phone or tablet.
It involves about 30 to 40 players parachuting onto a remote island, where the priority is to kill (or be killed), as you try to pick up different weapons – mostly guns – and other items to eliminate all of your opponents.
Never heard of Free Fire?
Check out 5 hot things you should know about it.
Billionaire game developer
Free Fire is not the first mobile survival game to be inspired by the 2000 Japanese film Battle Royale. There is also PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) and Fortnite, both of which are huge hits.
Yet this has not failed to stop the rise in popularity of this new digital game, which shares some similarities with the Hunger Games films.
The worldwide success of the game has helped to make a billionaire of Forrest Li, founder and CEO of Sea, the Singapore-based parent company of the game’s developer, digital entertainment platform, Garena.
Free Fire was the fourth-most downloaded game worldwide in 2018 with 182 million downloads.
Weapons expertise helps
Thanks to my own films, Agent 1 and 2, I’ve learned a lot more about firearms. But Free Fire gets really detailed, to the point that I needed to research the difference between various rifles as the weapons operate realistically in terms of rate of fire and power.
Dressed for success
With over 100 million active users (that’s about the same as the number of Netflix subscribers) you’ll need a strategy to be the last survivor or “king” of each match, or eventually join a guild so you’ll have some allies to team up with.
You can also dress your avatar character up in some elaborate costumes, including non-military and animalistic outfits.
This type of avatar creativity means your style can become just as important as your gameplay.
Skimpy outfits ...
On the topic of dressing to impress, Free Fire differentiates itself from both PUBG and Fortnite in that the female outfits worn by its avatars can be rather skimpy.
I didn’t play enough to see anything remotely raunchy myself, but given the level of character customisation, there’s got to be some digital speakeasies with secret handshakes you need to learn for entry.
... and emoji dance moves
From handshakes to dance moves, one of the fun aspects of Free Fire is the chance to use emojis to make your character do things during the game.
If you’re playing until 5am, like I am, you’ll want to buy the “floss” emoji so you can feel like you are “digitally” clubbing at Lan Kwai Fong’s “Drop”.
Just don’t tap dance too hard, like I did.
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The huge variety of realistic weapons and wide range of avatars that players can choose have helped to make the kill-or-be-killed mobile phone game a worldwide success