There's nothing like the adrenaline you get as you play a round of Garena Free Fire. From jumping out of the plane to seeing that golden 'Victory' banner appear on screen, it's a rush that you keep coming back to.
Whether it's in or out of the battlefield, that's the exact energy the Garena team wants to emulate for their players all around the world. Be it in-game items or real-life events, the video game wants the exhilarating Free Fire to transcend beyond just your phones.
Free Fire recently took over Times Square in New York and we couldn't have done it without the help of the @bts_bighit #ARMY! 💜
— Garena Free Fire North America (@FreeFire_NA) April 12, 2022
We had a great time with you all! Thank you everyone who came out to support Free Fire, you are all IDOLS in our eyes😉🤩#FreeFireXBTS #BTS #BTSARMY pic.twitter.com/GnvXw21Msn
In their latest effort, Free Fire partnered with one of the biggest musical acts today, BTS, to launch their latest campaign Generation Free Fire (Gen FF). Beyond just being award-winning artists, the 'Butter' hitmakers are avid gamers with the kind of energy that fits right in to the universe of the popular battle royale game.
"We are always looking to offer new and different ways for players to enjoy Free Fire. Working with BTS as a brand ambassador was a clear choice for us. They are a global phenomenon and their appeal and influence are unrivalled, and we knew that bringing BTS into the Free Fire universe would excite our fans and offer them more ways to socialise and discover new experiences," said Free Fire producer Harold Teo.
With the global launch of Gen FF, Bandwagon caught up with Free Fire producer Harold Teo to talk about collaborating with BTS, the creative process behind the campaign, and the future of Free Fire.
You recently partnered with BTS to launch the Generation Free Fire campaign, could you walk us through what the campaign is all about?
We are always looking to offer new and different ways for players to enjoy Free Fire. This BTS collaboration was designed to offer players opportunities to engage with content both in and outside of the game.
In the game, we have a collection of Gen FF content and events for players. Beyond the game, we were thrilled to work with BTS for The Free Fire x BTS Show, where the two-episode variety show featured all seven members of BTS engaging in a series of activities and discussions about the collaboration.
We also held several offline activations to deliver an in-person experience for our communities across the world, including those in New York, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, and Vietnam.
What motivated the decision to collaborate with BTS for this particular campaign?
Working with BTS as a brand ambassador was a clear choice for us. They are a global phenomenon and their appeal and influence are unrivalled, and we knew that bringing BTS into the Free Fire universe would excite our fans and offer them more ways to socialise and discover new experiences. We’ve seen great reception from our community when we align with their areas of interest outside of gaming, whether it is sports, music, movies or pop culture – and this collaboration has been no exception.
The Free Fire x BTS collab seems to be getting a lot of love from BTS fans, what’s the reception been like for users who aren’t necessarily fans of the band?
We’ve been seeing amazing reception from fans and gamers around the world, including from those who might not previously have been interested in Free Fire or BTS. For example, a gaming YouTuber HGamesYT, who has over 7.2M subscribers and had never heard of Free Fire prior to the collaboration, was introduced to the game because of his interest in BTS.
We’re extremely heartened by how well it’s been received and reminds us how crossover events with partners outside of gaming are great opportunities to bring communities together, as well as introduce new experiences to people.
Could you walk us through what it’s like conceptualising in-game items and events is like for Free Fire?
Understanding our community’s tastes and preferences and hearing their feedback along the way is important for us. We keep them in mind whenever we create anything in Free Fire.
There are also several rounds of brainstorming and approval that happen within different teams in Free Fire. We make sure everything that goes out to our community is well thought through, and factors into consideration from different perspectives.
For this collaboration with BTS, we were fortunate enough to have the collection of costumes hand-drawn by all seven BTS members! We turned what they drew on paper into actual costumes in Free Fire, for players and fans to enjoy.
There are a lot of battle royale mobile games out there today, what exactly makes Free Fire stand out?
We are guided by three core principles that we believe have helped make Free Fire one of the top played games in the world. Firstly, the game was developed exclusively with the mobile gamer in mind – our mobile-first strategy alongside quality content, which makes the battle royale experience highly accessible and immersive, has been crucial to Free Fire’s success.
Localisation is also one of our key strengths at Garena, which goes far beyond text localisation. We design elements of the game and bring Free Fire to life through grassroots events, campaigns, work with local influencers, among others. We also localise our community-building efforts globally, where we commit to providing offline experiences and events that are tailored to specific groups of players and fans.
Finally, we continue to find more ways for players to enjoy Free Fire, especially by developing the social elements of Free Fire. Many of our new game modes are designed to be highly social and provide more ways for our gamers to interact with their friends and other members of the Free Fire community. Craftland, our map editor feature in Free Fire MAX, for example, allows players to create their own unique maps and invite their friends to join them in playing. This taps into the creative power and potential of our community and offers a new way for friends to enjoy the game in a personalised space.
What else can we expect from Free Fire?
We are really excited about our next international tournament—the Free Fire World Series (FFWS)—which will be held in Sentosa, Singapore, next month. The FFWS is our iconic offline tournament and is something that both players and fans eagerly anticipate. FFWS 2022 Sentosa will be our third World Series, following previous editions held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2019) and Singapore (2021).
One of our other areas of focus currently is to build up the lore and backstory of the Free Fire Universe, and offer our community an opportunity to dive deeper into Free Fire.
Garena Free Fire is available for download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
Like what you read? Show our writer some love!
-