MeinMMO-Asia expert Cedric Holmeier has ventured into the Chinese servers of Honor of Kings: World and reveals what to expect from the massive MMORPG spinoff of the MOBA hit.
What is Honor of Kings: World anyway? Before we dive into the gameplay details, we need to clarify what we can actually expect here. If you think of Honor of Kings as just the gigantic mobile MOBA from Tencent (which broke the mark of 260 million players in October 2025), you are right, but you need to completely rethink for World.
As my MeinMMO colleague Karsten Scholz has aptly analyzed: The probably largest MMORPG of 2026 is actually not a classic MMORPG at all. Rather, you can expect a massive, beautifully designed open-world hybrid that departs from the classic theme park MMORPG
.
Here are the most important key data you need to know in advance:
- Solo focus: You won’t share the open world with hundreds of other players farming the quest monsters for you. Other players usually only appear in your world as
shadows
. - Targeted multiplayer: If you want to play with others, you can team up at any time for dungeons, story co-op, housing events, or PvP modes (1vs1, 4vs4). The principle is reminiscent of hits like Where Winds Meet or Genshin Impact.
- No classes, but champions: Instead of creating a warrior or mage, you equip yourself with the abilities of two well-known MOBA heroes at the same time and combine them seamlessly in combat.
Tencent is therefore fully focusing on a single-player experience with optional, but deep multiplayer hubs.
What expectations and knowledge do I bring? Although I have played many Asian MMORPGs, my interest in MOBAs ends after an ARAM in League of Legends. I only know Honor of Kings from hearsay and what most people probably know:
- Big LoL competitor
- Huge in China
- Prize money in the millions
The fact that the developers are launching an MMORPG spinoff with Honor of Kings: World did not initially interest me at all. Sure, the company has the financial means to build something great, as they already showed with the huge booth at Gamescom. However, after games like Tarisland and Blue Protocol: Star Resonance, I honestly did not expect anything from HoKW – and was completely blown away.
Here you can get a first impression of the game:
Graphics & Presentation: Oh boy!
MMORPGs from Asia are often also developed for mobile. This is simply because many of the over one billion Chinese have never owned a computer but do use a smartphone. Accordingly, I had low expectations for the graphics of HoKW. But, oh boy: it blows me away!
If WoW 2.0 looked as beautiful and ran as smoothly as Honor of Kings: World, then every former player would surely return to Azeroth. The graphics, while cartoonish, are filled with details of the characters, the environment, and especially the extreme sharpness in the game really impressed me. Every cutscene is cinematographically implemented and could serve as a title image for this article.
I also give a plus point for the creativity of the presentation. Due to the still non-existent localization and the rather mediocre English patches made available by the community, I unfortunately only have a limited idea of what is actually happening in the world.
However, the cutscenes – especially when a story is being told – do not simply show conversations. They sometimes switch to fully animated anime sequences that, while they cannot compete with Naruto, Conan, and others, were likely more elaborate in production than simply having an NPC tell what happened somewhere sometime.
The game world of Honor of Kings: World is not only visually striking; it is also simply huge. There are various biomes to explore. To prevent this from turning into a tedious running simulator, you can quickly travel from A to B thanks to a floating surfboard as a mount. Alternatively, you can also teleport comfortably via fast travel.
The world is not just a pretty backdrop; it is filled with life: there are plenty of bosses, side quests, and – what really surprised me – a lot of puzzles to discover. While they are never extremely difficult, they bring great variety to the MMO routine.
There are also plenty of things to do in the dungeons besides boss battles. For example, you can find collectibles that can be exchanged with a hidden vendor for cosmetic items and cool titles.
This works especially well if you tackle the dungeons alone instead of in a chaotic group and really enjoy exploring. However, if you are not so fascinated by the game world itself, you can travel wonderfully from attraction to attraction via fast travel – which brings us back to the keyword “theme park.”
Continue on the next page.
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