Singapore-based publisher Garena landed a big hit with their mobile esports game Free Fire. The game attracts as many as 80 million regular players every day – and with good reason. It’s another entry into the popular battle royale genre, and it’s free to play. It also runs on weaker mobile devices, making it the ideal choice for players everywhere.
Naturally, that led to an emerging esports scene forming as well – and that emerging scene quickly turned into an established one. While we were busy wondering whats is all the hype with Free Fire esports, came a whole series of surprisingly popular events. A few of them even set new records for viewership numbers last year.
© Free Fire
The most recent event that’s been announced is the new Free Fire Continental Series (FFCS). Garena themselves announced the flagship international series for this year as a replacement for the Free Fire World Series. The tournament will be played entirely online and consist of three different regional series and features a total prize pool of $900.000. Each of the three Free Fire regions will be awarded a third of the sum. Teams will need to navigate the Play-ins first, in order to qualify for the Grand Finals, where they’ll be able to compete for their share of the prize.
The three regions are the Americas, Asia, and EMEA. All three competitions will take place at the same time, and are open to regional teams. Curiously, the Americas region has been focused mostly on South American countries, rather than North America as is often the case.
This is likely because the game (and mobile gaming in general) is huge in the region. It’s unclear if/how North America fits into the Free Fire Continental series.
The EMEA region is drawn much more broadly – it includes Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. For the Asian region, Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Thailand, and Vietnam are part of the competition. Already, it’s been announced that three teams from India will take part, determined through seeds from smaller local tournaments held first.
The series are all starting at the same time – on the 21st of November for the Latin American region and the 22nd for the other two. The Grand Finals are happening on the 28th of November for the Americas series, and on the 29th of November for Asia and EMEA. The format for the play-ins is simple: teams will compete in 6 rounds on three maps – Bermuda, Purgatory, and Kalahari.
This format will also carry over to the Grand Finals, though last-minute changes are still a possibility. The final lineup of teams hasn’t been revealed yet, but we should see things moving quickly in the next two weeks. Meanwhile, FreeFire is busy producing content and music videos in each of their regions to promote the event. In fact, FreeFire has become as much of an esports as it is an amazing way to find new musical talent to create songs for their updates and events.
All of their Youtube channels feature amazing regional artists and music with amazing visuals and vocals. Be sure to check out the regional Youtube and Twitter accounts for specifics. Sign up with your team if you want to participate, or tune into the official Twitch streams if you’d rather watch than participate!
Throughout the play-ins and regional qualifiers there are a few noteworthy teams you should keep your eyes on.
In the Americas region, four team are likely to battle for dominance. If you are familiar with other esports titles you will be familiar with their names. Team Liquid, paiN Gaming, Infinity Esports and Red Canids are all likely to advance far in the event.
For Asia, keep an eye out for Evos Esports and BOX Gaming and CriticalX Elite as the main favorites.
Finally, Europe is expected to be heavily dominated by the Portugese and CIS teams. Silence, Stay Away and Vasto Mundo should be the best performers.
We are going to feature an entire tournament dedicated page for FFCS paired with tournament overview, betting tips and predictions soon. Check out our Battle Royale news regularly.
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