Honor of Kings: World
The gameplay loop almost completely departs from the classic theme park MMORPG and is essentially a single-player open-world action RPG with optional multiplayer hubs – structurally very close to games like Genshin Impact or Where Winds Meet.
You do not share the huge, detailed, open world with hundreds of other players. Others usually appear only as phantoms. You explore the biomes on a floating surfboard, solving small puzzles in the open world and collecting hidden items in dungeons. If you want multiplayer, you need to specifically team up for instances, PvP modes (1vs1, 4vs4), or story co-op.
There are no classic classes during character creation. Instead, your character equips the weapons and abilities of well-known MOBA champions from the Honor of Kings
universe. You fluidly switch between two kits in the middle of action-packed combat (e.g., melee swordsman and AoE healer), parry attacks, and break the opponents’ stance for devastating finishers.
The loop is heavily dictated by mobile mechanics. Your progress in the story is blocked by world level
(soft-gating). To increase this, you must grind bosses for upgrade materials.
The catch: Looting these bosses and engaging in certain activities costs a kind of stamina
(energy). When this is empty, you cannot progress in these content until your stamina regenerates or you use items (mostly from the cash shop).
Aside from combat, there is an extensive housing system. In your own small instance, you build and decorate your house and maintain a garden in a Farmville style.
More than just an MMORPG
Tencent targets a gigantic audience here that values convenience and presentation. If you want to explore a gigantic, visually stunning world at your own pace, enjoy crisp action battles, and only team up with friends for targeted dungeons in the evenings, you’ll find an excellently produced game here.
A massive plus for many: There is no endless random grind for equipment. Items do not have random values (RNG); instead, you collect fixed sets for specific playstyles (agility, healing, etc.). This respects players’ time significantly more than the competition.
Anyone who loves the universe will enjoy countless lore cutscenes, fully voiced dialogues, and experimenting with the 55 different champion combinations (as of the beta).
The counter-proposal to WoW
The red flags are particularly waving for traditional PC gamers and MMORPG veterans. If you are looking for the massively
feel – that is, 40-player raids, competing for quest mobs in crowded areas, huge guild wars, or deep social server structures – you will probably uninstall the game quickly. HoK:W is, at its core, a single-player comfort zone.
Currently, the PvE lacks real mechanical depth in the end game. Proper raids are still missing. The bosses sometimes degenerate into pure DPS checks instead of testing mechanical skill.
The interface is a disaster for PC players. It is overloaded with nested menus, where countless red notification points constantly blink, which cannot be muted.
Even though monetization seems tamer than in Aion 2, the pitfalls are present: spectacular costumes are almost only available from the gacha loot box. However, it is much more serious that at least in the beta, the currently strongest character/class was exclusively locked behind the paywall of the premium battle pass. This is classic MOBA monetization that leaves a bitter aftertaste in an RPG.
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