As smartphone technology continues to improve, mobile gaming is becoming increasingly popular. Not only is mobile gaming more accessible and convenient, but we now also have phones that are powerful enough to handle some high-quality games that were previously only playable on PC.
Mobile gamers love the freedom of playing on their smartphones as it gives them the ability to play their favourite titles, anywhere and anytime. But, which games were the most popular with mobile gamers in 2021? Here’s a look at the titles smartphone users were downloading and playing last year.
According to the App Annie State of Mobile 2022 report, Garena Free Fire – New Age was the most downloaded mobile game globally in 2021, across both the iOS and Google Play stores. This marks the third year in a row that Free Fire was the most downloaded mobile game worldwide on App Annie’s list, having also topped the ranking in 2020 and 2019.
Free Fire achieved a new record high of over 150 million peak daily active users in 2021 and hit over 1 billion downloads on Google Play in July. It is believed the mobile battle royale game is the first to achieve this milestone, and joins a small group of mobile games that have achieved this level of downloads. What’s more, Free Fire’s flagship tournament of the year, the Free Fire World Series 2021 Singapore was watched by 5.4 million concurrent viewers at its peak, the highest of any esports match in history, according to Esports Charts (excluding views from all Chinese streaming and video platforms).
Looking ahead to 2022, Garena Free Fire has announced collaborations with some of the world’s most popular stars and brands to engage players further, including DJ duo Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike (DVLM), McLaren, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and a second tie-up with Money Heist (La Casa de Papel).
Other top hitters were popular titles, Subway Surfers and Roblox which hit 191 million and 182 million global downloads during the year, respectively. The rest of the games on the global list include Bridge Race, Among Us, Hair Challenge, Join Clash, 8 Ball Pool, Ludo King, and Candy Crush Saga. In the U.S., the top-ten games included Roblox, Project Makeover, Among Us, Subway Surfers, Bridge Race, High Heels!, Magic Tiles 3, Wordscapes, Paper Fold, and Call of Duty Mobile.
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