Every region has a game that dominates its gaming ecosystem.
Korea has League of Legends. Pakistan has Tekken. Japan has Street Fighter. Southeast Asia has Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Europe has Counter-Strike 2.
Meanwhile, China has a strong footprint in all games, but there is one game that they are miles ahead of the next region – Honor of Kings.
Since the game’s inception, China has been one of the top regions playing the game.
It makes sense. The game uses Chinese historical/mythological characters and was developed by Tencent, a company based in China. It was originally launched in China, of course.
This head start allowed the country to develop its own following for the game. It now features a community of players, which has become the heart of the Honor of Kings esports scene.
“The game is super fun,” Kuaishou’s Zhang “LiuLang” Heng said to Esports Insider. “Maybe we started playing it when we were younger. You can queue up as a group of five, hang out with friends offline, and just have fun together.”
So, while China is the global leader in Honor of Kings, is any other country claiming the No. 2 spot in the world, and how wide is the gap between the regions?
To answer this question, the first thing to consider is how deep China’s talent runs.
Advanced ecosystem
The Honor of Kings esports ecosystem is a maze to understand for most in North America, South America, Western Europe and Oceania – collectively referred to as the West.
But to boil it down to the simplest form, there are three major Honor of Kings events.
The first is the King Pro League, which is China’s top domestic event. The KPL Grand Finals begin Oct. 1-Nov. 14.
Teams outside of China compete at the Honor of Kings International Championship. This event features no Chinese teams. The date for this tournament has yet to be announced, but is expected later in the fall.
The final event is the Honor of Kings World Cup, which is held at the Esports World Cup every year. It is the only place where teams from all countries gather in one country to compete against each other.
“China has a very strong competitive ecosystem, with many high-level teams and players pushing each other every day,” Bigetron by Vitality’s Muhammad “JenMyth” Rifaldi said. “Other regions need more opportunities to develop players and compete at that level consistently.”
But even while China has its own circuit to itself, players are starting to experience challenges coming from other regions around the world.
“I think players from other regions are improving very fast,” LiuLang said. “Playing through this tournament, it feels like opponents from every region are already quite strong – equivalent to very capable teams in our domestic league. Moving forward, they just need to keep working hard. I feel the gap isn’t very wide anymore.”
One of the regions hoping to compete with them in terms of strength in Honor of Kings: Southeast Asia.
China is No. 1, but who is No. 2?
The two teams that finished third and fourth in the Esports World Cup weren’t from China. Rather, they were from Malaysia – Geekay Esports and ROC Esports.
Both Malaysian teams lost in the semifinals 3-0 to the Chinese squads, but their ability to get to the semifinals left a mark on eventual champion Kuaishou.
“They put a lot of pressure on us,” He “jHao” Weijia said. “In-game, both their macro and team-fighting capabilities were very mature, which you could clearly feel while playing the match.”
Southeast Asia remains a hotbed for the mobile game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. It was the lone title with both a women’s and men’s tournament at the Esports World Cup.
But while Mobile Legends: Bang Bang dominates the scene, some players in Southeast Asia are also carving their own path in the Honor of Kings community.
“For me, it’s the gameplay and the competitive environment,” JenMyth said. “I really enjoy how Honor of Kings plays, and I feel that its mechanics and playstyle fit me well.”
The games, while both fitting in the MOBA category, have small mechanical differences.
The first is the smaller map in Honor of Kings, resulting in a faster pace initially before moving into a more deliberate play style at higher levels.
Additionally, Honor of Kings offers more neutral objectives, along with healing zones where players don’t have to recall to base to fully heal.
But playing the game remains fundamentally the same, as the other game concepts carry between Honor of Kings and Mobile Legends.
“We still have a lot to improve,” JenMyth said. “But with more international experience, stronger local competition, and better preparation, I think we can close the gap.”
But while the scene is growing in Southeast Asia and China, the West remains a relatively small place in the overall scene.
That means it will take a little bit of time for the other regions, such as Southeast Asia, to start getting enough series to begin understanding the minutiae needed to become an elite team.
Meanwhile in the West, the game is barely recognizable.
But that’s not for the lack of trying.
Where is the West?
Only two teams from the West qualified for the Honor of Kings World Cup in Paris – Virtus.pro and MIBR.LOS.
MIBR.LOS qualified from the only region (Brazil’s Campeonato de Honor of Kings Brasil) with direct entry to both the World Cup and the Honor of Kings International Championship. European, Oceanic, and North American teams need to qualify through leagues where they compete against teams from anywhere there isn’t an official league for direct entry.
MIBR.LOS lost both series, failing to win a single game. Virtus.pro managed to get to the playoffs, losing 4-0 against Kuaishou Gaming.
So why is the West lacking representation in the Honor of Kings space? Well, part of it must be due to the gaming culture of the regions.
In the West, competitive games are widely considered to be console or PC. In Southeast Asia, PCs and consoles tend to be out of reach for some players, meaning they use their phone also as a primary gaming device, along with its everyday uses.
“In Asia, handphones can be easily obtained, unlike computers,” Mobile Legends: Bang Bang women’s professional Vivi “Vivian” Indrawaty said. “Computers are too expensive in my country [Indonesia]. If you want to game, you need good spec, and [that is] very, very expensive.”
That low barrier of entry, however, has allowed players who didn’t consider themselves gamers to pick up games.
“I’m not really a gamer type,” Natus Vincere Mobile Legends pro Kaye Keishi Alpuerto said. “I just saw my brother and friends playing Mobile Legends, and I see it as entertaining.
“It’s fun to play, and it’s very accessible.”
Time will tell if the rising cost of PC parts will drive more players into the mobile gaming space in the West. Until then, the region will continue to lag behind its international counterparts.
A moving target
Unless things adapt, Kuaishou won’t have to face another international team until the 2027 Esports World Cup.
While the Esports Nations Cup and Asian Games will feature Honor of Kings in a country-vs.-country format, it’s likely that China can only be threatened by a Malaysian team, though even that seems a distant possibility given how dominant the region is and the depth of China’s player base.
Time will reveal how close another region gets to China, but the thing about any competitive environment is that nobody stays stagnant.
While the other regions are going to improve, China isn’t going to wait for them to catch up.
Just ask Zhao “silence” Haoyu how he thought the tournament went for Kuaishou.
“We could improve our team synergy a bit further,” he said.
If the team that just won the only cross-region tournament featuring China still believes there’s room to grow, then maybe the gap isn’t as close as they think.
Maybe while the other regions have made up a large number of miles needed to catch up, there remains the gap between them and China.
Especially if China continues to move forward in the process.
