Garena relaunches Free Fire in India as localized standalone game after four-year ban

Garena brings Free Fire back to India

More than four years after India blocked Free Fire on national security grounds, Garena has relaunched the battle royale title in the country as a standalone, localized game called Free Fire India. According to TechCrunch, the new version went live on Wednesday and is available on both Android and iOS.

The release ends a long wait that included a false start: Garena first announced Free Fire India in September 2023 but quietly shelved that launch, and the company declined to explain either the delay or what changed to make the current release possible.

What is different in the Indian edition

Free Fire India ships with India-specific content alongside a set of guardrails that appear designed to answer regulatory concerns. According to TechCrunch, the game includes parental controls, playtime limits and spending caps, and player data is stored on servers located within India. Garena is owned by Sea, the Singapore-based internet group.

Vaibhav Das Mundhra, Garena's head of operations in India, told TechCrunch that the company worked with the relevant Indian government authorities and incorporated their feedback while preparing the game.

The ban that wiped billions off Sea

India banned Free Fire in February 2022 together with 53 other apps over alleged links to China. The game had surged in popularity after PUBG Mobile was blocked in September 2020. The ban hit Sea hard: TechCrunch reports the parent company lost more than $16 billion in market value in a single day.

Garena was not absent in the interim. Free Fire MAX, an enhanced edition of the game, was never on the banned list and stayed available to Indian players. TechCrunch also previously reported that the company's studios in Pune and Mumbai built India-focused titles inspired by Hindu mythology, cricket and Ludo while the original game remained blocked; one of them, Versus, briefly appeared in early access on Google Play but is no longer listed.

Two Free Fires, one account

Free Fire India will not replace Free Fire MAX. Mundhra told TechCrunch that both games will remain available, and players can use a single account across the two, play together and take part in the same events.

The franchise kept a strong grip on Indian players even without the original app. Sensor Tower data reviewed by TechCrunch put the Free Fire franchise at roughly 77.4 million monthly active users in India in June, compared with 20.8 million for Battlegrounds Mobile India, the localized PUBG Mobile successor from Krafton that has struggled to match its rival's reach.

A market too large to walk away from

India remains a major destination for mobile gaming despite the regulatory whiplash. Per Sensor Tower, mobile game downloads in the country grew 14.2% quarter-over-quarter to 2 billion in Q2, while revenue climbed 3.7% to more than $106 million. Indian Free Fire squads including S8UL Esports, Apex Gaming and Total Gaming competed at the Esports World Cup 2026, and S8UL co-founder and CEO Animesh Agarwal told TechCrunch that the game's return could open up more opportunities for players and creators across the ecosystem.

Why it matters

The relaunch shows how foreign gaming companies are adapting to India's app bans rather than abandoning the market: localize the product, host data inside the country, add safety features and work with regulators before launch. It also hands Garena a rare second chance in one of the world's largest mobile gaming markets, with a brand that still outdraws its closest rival by a wide margin. For the wider industry, Free Fire India's compliance-first design, from playtime limits to spending caps to local data storage, may become a template for other apps seeking re-entry after an Indian security ban, and a test of whether that template actually holds.