First launched in China in 2015, Honor of Kings is an action-packed game with strategic gameplay and hero-collection mechanics. This MOBA, or multiplayer online battle arena, from Tencent Timi Studio has players and their teammates working together to destroy their opponent's crystal in the base.

Playing Honor of Kings is a lot like playing other MOBA strategy games. You form a team and attack the other player's base. Coordinating with your teammates and executing tactics can help you attack or defend better. Plus, the game’s AI will take over a player’s hero in case of sudden disruptions in internet connectivity.

Assemble your team

Honor of Kings features six hero classes: Assassin, Fighter, Mage, Marksman, Tank, and Support. Assassins can inflict massive damage and take enemies by surprise, whereas Supports are responsible for buffing their teammates, ensuring their survivability, and inflicting debuffs on their foes. Marksman heroes specialize in long-ranged combat, and like Assassins, they have high damage potential. Mages, while they also attack from afar, are great at crowd control thanks to their potent magic spells.

Fighters, meanwhile, get up close and personal with their opponents to inflict significant damage. Finally, Tanks are the protectors of the team, able to withstand more enemy attacks. Classes aside, this game has easy-to-learn yet hard-to-master gameplay. You will control your warrior in real time to destroy the opposing team’s crystal. However, with heroes boasting distinct abilities, matches become a complex network of character synergy and familiarity, tactics, and teamwork.

It can’t be denied that the game has a diverse roster of playable characters. Unfortunately, a large character roster comes with serious powercreeping issues. As such, this can lead to unbalanced gameplay between playable heroes and the game as a whole. In addition, players have grown increasingly frustrated with some of the title’s most glaring flaws, including crashing, poor matchmaking, and log-in timeouts. 

Season 12 overhaul 

Honor of Kings Plus received a major update that marked the global version’s first anniversary with sweeping changes that expanded customization, balance, and community tools. The update introduced Flowborn, a personalized avatar hero with customizable appearance and adaptive combat skills across roles, adding a new layer of strategic freedom. Voice-to-text transcription and translation were added to improve team communication, and battlefield adjustments like increased mid-lane minions, sprite rebalancing, and permanent Teleport availability.  

Honor Pass progression was overhauled, offering free rewards and expanded missions, while limited-time skin offers further sweetened seasonal engagement. Season 12 introduced Spriteling companion features, a new hero Umbrosa, with unique revive mechanics, and a weekend-only Ultimate Awakening mode, enhancing late-game play and tactical variety. While the game is free to play, microtransactions for cosmetics and seasonal passes exist, which are pushed hard at times, especially during events. 

Worth a try 

Honor of Kings is a game that shares similarities with League of Legends: Wild Rift, Dota 2, and other popular MOBA titles. Being a team-based title, it encourages collaboration between players to synergize their characters and execute tactics that help them destroy the opposing team’s crystal and secure a well-deserved win. In addition to the potential powercreeping, this game also has its fair share of technical issues, including crashing and log-in timeouts.