App analytics firm Sensor Tower has published a list of the top 10 mobile games in terms of overall downloads for January 2022. According to an analysis by Sensor Tower showed that Free Fire was the most downloaded mobile game worldwide in the first month of 2022.

https://twitter.com/SensorTower/status/1494365792401563658?t=0SKpOxqokpcj87TtlqAYZg&s=19
 

It is estimated that 24 million downloads were made in 31 days, representing a 51.6 percent increase year-over-year. The most downloads were made by India, which accounted for 25.5 percent of the global total, followed by Brazil with 11.7 percent.

A few days after the game was pulled from Apple's App Store and Google Play Store on Feb 12, Indian media houses reported that the game was banned along with 53 other apps as the government deems them as a "threat to national security." No official statement has been released by Delhi regarding the ban.

Despite Free Fire's reported ban in its biggest market, India, earlier this week, it remains to be seen how many installs it gets this month. It is one of the most played games in the world and consistently ranks first in Sensor Tower's monthly download reports.

Additionally, PUBG Mobile was banned in India in September 2020. Krafton made a comeback with Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), an exclusive Indian version of the game in July 2021. Currently, Free Fire Max is available for download on the Google Play store in India.

In January 2022, Subway Surfers climbed one spot to become the second most-installed mobile game. 58.6% more people installed the game, with 23.7 million installs. Among the top markets, India topped with 20.7% of installs, followed by the United States with around 7%.

Even so, Free Fire's absence from the two biggest mobile application stores will surely hamper its overall downloads. This week, Garena, the developer, announced that it was aware of the game's unavailability in app stores and was working to resolve it.

The game is still accessible to most Indian players. However, it is not available on Google Play or Apple's App Store. Android users can download the APK files from a third-party store and play the game immediately.