Five tips we wish we knew before playing Free Fire

If you're an experienced battle royale player, you might think you know everything there is to know about Free Fire when you first log in. But there’s more to Free Fire than just dropping in, gathering loot, eliminating opponents, and being the last person standing.

Free Fire has important nuances you should consider before you take the leap into your first match. While it won’t guarantee you any wins in the beginning, your experience will be better off in the long run if you keep these small things in mind as you play.

Scattered around each Free Fire map are massive structures with doors on either side that stand out amongst the other buildings in the game. If you get close enough, you can peek through the window and see guns lined up on the shelf in the middle. These are Arsenals, and they can give you an instant leg up in the match so long as you find the key.

Once unlocked, Arsenals hold some of the most powerful weapons you can find in a match. There are enough weapons lying around in there that even if you find an open Arsenal someone else had unlocked, there should still be something worth picking up. If you see one of these in your travels, go look for the key; it'll be worth it.

In some matches, you may find yourself wandering through an open area with barely any trees or buildings to be seen, only for an enemy player to appear in view and start attacking. You might think you're a sitting duck without any cover, but that's where Gloo Walls come in.

With a single tap on the Gloo Walls key, you'll instantly produce a small wall that reaches over your head and extends to your sides. It provides instant cover, and you can use it as you try and take on the approaching enemy. Granted, these walls aren't permanent, but they buy you enough time to plan your next move, whether it's attacking or escaping to fight another day.

Between matches, go through all the different characters in the customization screen and find one you really like. Unlike other battle royale games, these characters are more than just cosmetic skins. Each one has a unique trait – some always active, some requiring activation – that will improve your chances in a match when selected.

Some abilities give stat boosts, like Andrew's increased armor efficiency or Kelly's improved sprinting speed. Others are more offense-focused, such as Moco's ability to tag enemies she damages or Jota's healing for every successful shot. Be sure to consider a character's ability when selecting a new one for your next match, as it could be the one thing that pushes you into a victory.

On the character menu, there’s a "preset" option with multiple fields to fill in. This is a fully customizable option where you can select a skin, a costume, etc. Along with the ability of your selected character, each preset has three additional slots for abilities for previously unlocked characters, so you can assign multiple abilities and bring them into battle at the same time.

Remember those four example abilities mentioned earlier? They can all be set to one preset at the same time, which would give your character increased armor, increased running speed, and the ability to mark enemies and heal damage with every successful shot. Mixing and matching characters’ abilities can result in some incredible builds, so experiment and see what you can come up with.

On the character menu, there are four slots. While the first three help with building a preset, the fourth one is reserved for pets. Pets are cute little animal pals that not only accompany your character as you battle through a match, but also provide buffs of their own to your character and make them even stronger.

Some pets admittedly don't offer any buffs at all – they simply come along for the battle royale ride – and that's fine because they're adorable. The ones that do give buffs, like Detective Panda's ability to heal you after every elimination or Moony's damage reduction during healing item animations, should definitely take precedence for you if you're trying to compete and win.