Tencent will produce a scripted TV series following the life of a fictional Honor of Kings player and their quest for glory.
The live-action series will follow a Chinese teenage who plays Honor of Kings, as he battles his way to becoming a professional HoK player. The teenager will face challenges as he tries to follow the footsteps of his brother, whose career was cut short.
The series is based off a serial story by a famed Chinese novelist. No release date for the TV show has been set, however, Abacus News reported the serial was published online last week and has been viewed over 120,00 times.
Launched in 2015, Honor of Kings has been a big hit for publisher Tencent: in one quarter it grossed 4bn yuan (£452m). The game is based on Chinese historical characters, with the MOBA boasts over 200 million players, making it the most popular game of its genre in China.
The popularity, however, has drawn criticism from Chinese newspapers with Tencent even imposing limitations on the amount of daily time of one hour for under 12s who cannot log in after 9 pm. Players aged between 12 and 18 are allowed only two hours.
In the west, Honor of Kings (Arena of Valor) is one of the leading mobile esports titles, with teams such as SK Gaming, Team Vitality, and Immortals all signing rosters for the World Cup in Los Angeles in July, that features a $500,000 (££354,035) prize pool.
Esports Insider says: Gaming based entertainment has often done better in China, both the Warcraft movie and Ready Player One did much better numbers in China than in America which means this project has a much higher chance of being a success. The games huge player base will also play a big role in the success of any non-game related content such as this.
