- Garena Free City is now available for pre-registration on iOS and Android
- Currently, you can sign up in the Middle-east, Southeast Asia and Africa
- But can this GTA-like stand out?
Garena Free City, the newest release in the developer’s lengthy catalogue, is now available for pre-registration in Southeast Asia, Middle East and Africa regions. What’s it all about? Well, let’s just say that if you’ve been waiting for a certain sixth entry in a famous series this may help tide you over.
Look, let’s cut to the chase here. This is Grand Theft Auto, or at least Garena’s take on it, and it’s expected to arrive on June 30th. And whether or not that’s a good or a bad thing entirely depends on your opinion. Admittedly at first glance, it looks as if it’s a rather lacklustre GTA mobile clone, but dig a little deeper and there’s some potential here.
For one it looks to have a fairly robust character customisation system, complete with Sims-like manipulation of individual features. It also doesn’t try to emulate the more realistic style of GTA, featuring everything from giant robots to summonable power-ups like deployable cover.
Bold & Brash
But, by that same stroke, it’s obvious there’s plenty here that’s trying to explicitly emulate the appeal of something like Grand Theft Auto Online. This is a shame because the more out-there elements are certainly attention-grabbing.
However, Garena may have chosen a poor time to push Free City out there. While I don’t think there’s such a thing as a killer app in a single genre on mobile, Ananta is a major upcoming release selling itself on a wide-open world and crazy sidequests just like Free City, but more so.
Ananta also feels like it’s doing something different. However, I’m sure there are some people out there who’ll be turned away by the anime aesthetic. At the same time, not embracing being different is the one complaint I have so far with Free City.
Want to keep Ahead of the Game with current launches? Well, why not check out Catherine’s regular feature of the same name to see upcoming games you can play right now?
