Singaporean developer Garena’s mobile battle royale, Free Fire has been removed from Google Play and the App Store in India.
Garena: Free Fire has been undoubtedly a popular mobile battle royale game for many years. But unfortunately for fans in India, the game was abruptly removed from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store this weeks.
In the lead up to removal users were complaining about issues while logging into the game. Although whether or not that’s related is anyone’s guess as so far, Garena haven’t released a statement.
Free Fire was removed from the Indian version of both the Google and Apple stores on February 12 2022; although the recently released Free Fire Max is still available on the Google Play Store. Players in the region who already have Garena: Free Fire installed will also continue to have access.
There are a few speculations about the game’s removal. Recently, Krafton, the Developer of PUBG: Mobile, filed a lawsuit against Garena related to copyright of their game. Krafton has also launched suits against Google and Apple for allowing the apps on their platforms. But like Garena, neither Google nor Apple has made any official statement regarding what prompted the move.
UPDATE:#GarenaFreeFire gets removed from India’s Google Playstore
• Follows Free Fire and Free Fire MAX being removed from India’s Apple AppStore earlier today
• Reason unknown
• KRAFTON recently filed a lawsuit against Garena, Google, and Apple re: copyright infringement pic.twitter.com/7wz4LbdHXA— PlayerIGN (@PlayerIGN) February 12, 2022
Another speculation is that India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT has banned the game. Similar to their ban of PUBG: Mobile back in 2020. However that ban was accompanied by an official statement from the government including a list of all the other banned apps. No such statement has been issued this time.
estnn.com
