Mobile Legends: Bang Bang moves US publishing operations to Skystone

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) has announced it will move its publishing operations in the United States to local game publisher Skystone.

Announced earlier this morning through an official MLBB Facebook account, the migrating process will begin on March 27th. The new version, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang US, will become available for download on the same day.

Players won’t lose their progress or data during the migration process but will have to download the new version. For Google Play, the process will allow players to claim exclusive rewards. For iOS users, Skystone is looking to quicken the approval process on the App Store and will notify users with updates.

MLBB was temporarily banned in the US on January 19th, 2025, following the ban of the short-form platform TikTok. Both TikTok and MOONTON Games, the game developer of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, are owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance.

The ban was lifted shortly after by President Donald Trump‘s Executive Order, with MLBB resuming its services on January 21st. The Executive Order prevents the enforcement of TikTok’s ban, and consequently MLBB, for the next 75 days, until April 3rd.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang wasn’t the only game affected by TikTok’s temporary ban. Digital card game Marvel Snap, which is also owned by ByteDance, was initially banned and later returned on January 21st.

With the Executive Order deadline coming close, there was the possibility that MLBB could have been shut down in the near future. As such, MOONTON’s decision to move its publishing operations can be seen as a solution to prevent that from happening.

Esports Insider has reached out to MOONTON for comment and will update the article if further information has been provided.

Founded in 2020, Skystone is a game publisher that has published games such as the roguelike deck-building title HELLCARD and action RPG Tyrant’s Realm. Whilst the company has published games for mobile, the company is more known for PC and Console titles.

MLBB has grown to become one of the most popular mobile esports games in the world. It has over 1.5bn downloads and 110m active monthly users. The game has an active esports scene and has been quickly expanding worldwide, including key mobile markets such as China.