The Free Fire World Series (FFWS) 2022, set to be held on Singaporean island Sentosa, has unveiled its $2m (~£1.54m) prize pool. However, this edition will not feature organisations from India and the CIS region.
The absence of Indian representatives is due to the game’s ban in the country in February, along with titles like PUBG Mobile, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Arena of Valor. This resulted in the country’s Free Fire league being put on hold, with no team qualifying for the global competition.
Image credit: Garena
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As for the CIS region, its local Free Fire tournament was cancelled after the Ukrainian invasion by Russia.
Commencing May 14th, the FFWS will now feature 18 teams instead of the original 22. The eight local champions from Brazil (LOUD), Indonesia (Evos Divine), Vietnam (Team Flash), LATAM (Mineros Esports), MCP (Farang), MENA (Wask), Thailand (Evos Phoenix) and EU (Vastomundo) will qualify for the finals. Meanwhile, Ten teams will play through a qualification stage.
Prior to the changes, the entry stage originally qualified two teams, however, it will now permit four teams.
Teams in the entry stage are: Fuego (North America), House of Blood (Pakistan), LGDS (Taiwan), Vivo Keyd (Brazil), Echo Esports (Indonesia), V-Gaming (Vietnam), Ignis Esports (Latin America), Todak (Malaysia, Cambodia and Philippines), All Stars Esports (MENA) and Attack All Around (Thailand).
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A second FFWS edition is expected for 2022, with the event usually occurring around November. The competition, though, has struggled to take place in the past due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, its November 2021 edition was cancelled, while both editions planned for 2020 did not occur.
Esports Insider says: It seemed like Garena would finally be able to proceed with its original plans for the Free Fire World Championship, but once again more out-of-hand factors have occurred. Despite these changes, the competition still holds huge prestige in regions like Brazil and Indonesia, where valuable media and sponsorship opportunities are in place.