'I'll keep going:' Chile granny finds solace, celebrity in online gaming

When competitors in 'Free Fire', the popular online shooter video game, face off against the warrior avatar 'Mami Nena', few would imagine that the person behind the computer screen is an 81-year-old Chilean woman. — AFP

LLAY-LLAY: Few players of the online video game Free Fire would know that one of their most ferocious opponents – a lithe, gun-wielding warrior in a short kimono and fang mask – is in reality an 81-year-old grandmother from rural Chile.

From her professional gaming chair at home in a small village, the soft-spoken Maria Elena Arevalo becomes a merciless hunter, mowing down rivals in a game in which tens of millions of players shoot it out to survive on an imaginary remote island.