Is Free Fire Pay to Win? How long is the free to play grind?

Mobile Games

December 20, 2024

Wasif Ahmed

Free Fire was released back in 2017 as a free-to-play BR title for Android and iOS devices. Initially competing with the likes of PUBG Mobile and CoD Mobile, the game was able to carve a niche for itself, particularly through its lesser demanding required specifications.

But, with a free-to-play title, there comes microtransactions which Free Fire isn’t shy about at all. You can unlock skins, outfits, and many more cosmetic items by spending a little cash in the game. However, the question arises if these in-game items give and competitive edge making the game pay-to-win. Here’s your answer to that.

Image Credits: Garena

Is Free Fire pay to win?

Free Fire has always been free-to-play. All the weapons and vehicles in a BR match can be obtained by scavenging the maps in the game.

However, there have been two aspects of the game which are of concern – and that is characters plus weapon skins.

Starting with the first, Free Fire has a huge variety of characters, some even based on popular personalities like DJ Alok, Justin Bieber, and Cristiano Ronaldo. All of these characters have an ability and some passive power-ups.

For example, the Ronaldo-themed character, Chrono’s ability, the Time Turner creates a damage-blocking force field. Similarly, other characters have power-ups too. If you are looking to purchase a new character, be sure to check out our best characters for Free Fire.

Earlier, players needed to spend Diamonds to get some of these characters, making the game a little pay-to-win since some of the abilities were locked for some players.

However, Garena changed this in 2022 by adding the Link System where any character can be unlocked for free. This still takes a lot of time, though.

Weapon skins, particularly Free Fire Evo Weapon Skins, are the main reason people label the game as pay-to-win. These skins provide more than just cosmetic advantages and are expensive, often requiring players to spend real money. However, their advantages are minor and not a significant cause for concern. Nevertheless, their existence introduces a slight pay-to-win element to Free Fire.

Thus, while Free Fire isn’t pay-to-win, spending Diamonds will be able to get you different characters quicker. If you want to know how to get free Diamonds in Free Fire, check out our guide.