Garena Free Fire has reached one billion downloads on Google Play

Garena has announced that their popular battle royale title, Free Fire, has recently crossed a staggering one billion downloads on Google Play alone. There are plenty of beloved mobile titles out there with millions of installs, but only a handful have reached 10 figures.

And that's only the figures for Android. I'd be fascinated to know what the total would be if iOS was taken into account. Of course, Android remains the leading mobile operating system globally, so the numbers there are bound to be higher.

To celebrate hitting this impressive milestone, a special in-game event will be held in August alongside the game's fourth-anniversary celebrations. Garena hasn't announced the details for this just yet, but we'll be sure to update you as and when we learn more.

The battle royale partially owes its success to a string of collaborative events that undoubtedly enticed new players to the game. This year alone they've teamed up with the likes of McLaren Racing, Street Fighter V, One-Punch Man, and Attack on Titan. On top of that, they've also worked with Cristiano Ronaldo and the Netflix TV series Money Heist.

The game also boasts a successful esports scene that continues to grow. The Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore took place recently and enjoyed a peak viewership of 5.4 million concurrent viewers, a global esports record.

Garena Free Fire is available now over on the App Store and Google Play. It's a free-to-play game with in-app purchases.