Smilegate Entertainment, creators of the blockbuster billion-dollar franchise, CROSSFIRE, celebrates the 10th event of its CROSSFIRE STARS Grand Finals, the most prestigious CROSSFIRE esports competition, that began in 2013.
CROSSFIRE, a first-person shooting game that launched in 2007, is currently played in more than 80 countries around the world, has 670 million total registered users and 8 million concurrent players worldwide with a total of 1 billion cumulative.
CFS is the CROSSFIRE-based global esports league that is enjoyed by more than 30 Million viewers and records an average viewership of 20 million people for each event. Launched in 2013, CFS continues to expand in such places as China, Europe, South America, Middle-east / Southeast Asia and Africa.
CFS 10th anniversary event milestones include:
- 2013: CFS Season 1 CROSSFIRE STARS officially launched in Shanghai, China
- 2014: CFS Becomes an annual tournament, becoming the world’s largest FPS competition
- 2015: CFS Invitational launches in Brazil and Vietnam
- 2018: The CFS brand and Grand Finals were integrated and held seven times in a row, creating the multi-sports esports league
- 2019: CFS Esports was conducted as a user participating festival
- 2020: Due to COVID-19 pandemic, CFS was held mainly online, but received a viewership of 21 million, with a total of over 231M accumulated viewers since 2013.
- 2021: CFS returned to live in-person events while prioritizing the health and safety of players
In the early days of CROSSFIRE esports, Chinese players and teams dominated the league. Now, there are strong teams with heritage from Brazil, Germany, and Egypt are showing great performance,” said Brandy Yeo, Director of CROSSFIRE esports at Smilegate Entertainment. “On 2021, team CELEBe.2L from Vietnam made their way to the semi-finals, beating top tier teams from various regions. Although there have been some challenges with in-person events, we’ve found new ways of holding our esports competition and CFS has just completed its 10th event and continues to be one of the most-watched FPS esports tournaments.