Honor of Kings: World – The First Preview

If you didn’t already know it, Honor of Kings is one of the most played games in the world. Taking the number one spot in the Chinese MOBA charts, the TiMi Group is taking its free-to-play characters – and world – in a new direction with Honor of Kings: World. While its scale and monetization screech in dissonance, its flashy combat, diverse roster of playable classes, and multiplayer-flexible modes do carry some promise.

During my half-hour-long hands-on with Honor of Kings: World at Tencent’s GDC booth, I took some time to toy around with a couple of World’s different classes, take on a boss inspired by Chinese folklore, and see a brief glimpse of the story.

Although it boasts many of the same characters as its mobile MOBA predecessor, Honor of Kings: World is no MOBA. Instead, it’s a class-driven action game – for PC as well as mobile, by the way – with the kind of over-the-shoulder, action-driven combat you might expect from something like Genshin Impact. But rather than locking mechanics or gameplay behind randomized drops like in MiHoYo’s game, Honor of Kings offers players different classes to choose from. And while the same overall control scheme unifies each class – a dodge, three standard abilities, and an ultimate of sorts – the roster of different classes struck me as fairly diverse, each with its own abilities and special perks.

Usually, you’ll be able to play with two separate classes, though sometimes you might need to stick with just one for story purposes. It seems like TiMi’s put a lot of effort into the dual-class system, allowing you to switch between the two during combat. The most interesting example they showed during my demo was starting a long, multiple-attack combo and switching characters once the target was launched into the air to extend a combo. It kind of reminded me of a tag system in a fighting game.

With 11 different classes in the demo I played, I’m certain there are tons of different combinations and ways to style on your opponent. But since this was my first time playing, I looked for balance above all else: I stuck with an even-keeled loadout, using a sword-wielding class for my primary role and a ranged gunner for the second. The two nicely filled in gaps left by the other during my attempt at a boss fight: I’d lay down fire using the gunner’s active reload mechanic to improve my damage and rate of fire when the boss was spitting out attacks in a frenzy, making sure to dodge the occasional flaming projectile and then rush him down with my sword, laying on the damage with a vengeance.

This swapping was easily my favorite part of the demo. I enjoyed hammering away at the boss’s stance meter, breaking his stance, and shooting the gunner’s R ability as I closed the distance, swapping to my sword class, and unleashing a devastating ultimate attack of sorts to juice every second from the boss’ temporarily weakened state.

Taking the boss down to a certain point also revealed an interesting story beat that eventually led to me playing as a completely separate character from the pre-built avatar provided for the demo. TiMi didn’t offer much information on how frequently to expect this kind of change, only that it would happen from time to time. The demo took place somewhere closer to halfway through Honor of Kings: World’s runtime, opening up my two classes’ skill trees just enough for me to have some fun with them without overcomplicating its combat.

The boss itself was a giant monkey character with various different masks, with a personality and attacking style for each. According to the developer leading my demo, this mechanic has its roots in a traditional style of Chinese theater called Bian lian. One mask might see him spitting fire in a massive area of effect on the map, while another might see him throw around a few melee attacks. I loved this melding of culture, history, and story with a gameplay mechanic.

Aside from briefly seeing another journalist in my demo in a hub area before the tutorial, I didn’t have a chance to check out any of World’s multiplayer offerings. TiMi showed a few clips of four-person squads crawling dungeons and taking on bosses before our demo, but teased something that sounded more like an MMO. That part is still a work in progress, so they didn’t share much beyond acknowledging that there would be a bigger scale multiplayer mode in the full game, so I’m curious to see what that looks like given my demo’s single-player scope.

Before the demo, one of TiMi’s developers walked me through some of World’s premise and setup, saying that Honor of Kings: World was a gift of sorts to the MOBA’s loyal fanbase that’s propelled it to massive success in the ten years since its launch. True as that may be, I left the demo concerned about monetization.

When another journalist asked about how TiMi plans to make money with Honor of Kings: World, the developer leading our session gave a concerning answer. “The game’s gonna be based around social, so outfits and stuff,” they said.

On its own, funding a free-to-play game with cosmetics isn’t necessarily a problem – especially since the developers made it clear that there wouldn’t be any pay-to-win – but given Honor of Kings: World’s scale, with flashy cutscenes, tons of playable characters, and epic boss fights, I can’t help but feel concerned about whether or not World’s model is financially sustainable, regardless of whether or not it’s based on one of the most successful games of the century.

Honor of Kings: World undoubtedly has a bright future ahead of it, provided TiMi can stick to its promise of giving fans of its MOBA hit a celebration worthy of its success. Even though I’m still a little worried about the amount of microtransactions that Honor of Kings: World could potentially need to fund its high production value, I still had a ton of fun dodging the big primate’s swings.