Light-hearted game that experimented with lots of gimmicky mechanics and unusual heroes. The battlefield has bridges which can be raised and lowered using levers to block and open paths.
Heroes can engage in optional side quests, or pick up one of several sub-categories of items which have unusual rules. There are also modest army-customisation options, as well as a selection of powerful tower upgrades.
All of its characters are based on real-world gods and myths from pantheons from around the world. It was among the first games played from a third-person perspective, offering a more immersive experience and affecting its vision and movement mechanics. The game uses almost entirely skill-shots, and offers a variety of competitive lane-pushing modes.
Mobile game resembling League of Legends, with slightly simpler heroes and action controls. It's enormously popular in China, thanks to WeChat and QQ social integration making it easy to bring friends, and building its lore and narrative around Chinese history and mythology.
Outside China, a different version of the game is distributed with the name 'Arena of Valor'. It uses a separate cast of characters, including licensed IP like 'Wonder Woman'. Gameplay on the Nintendo Switch is different to mobile, and as a result it is not cross-platform compatible.
Third-party research agency Jiguang published a report in 2017 declaring that the game's audience was 54% female and 52% under age 24. This has been backed up in 2020 by a report from the Shanghai Online Games Association. A report in 2019 from Newzoo suggests 46% of the Honor of Kings esports audience is female. This is comfortably the most inclusive lane-pushing game on the market, though its success appears constrained to the Chinese market.
Highly competitive map which popularised having a large quantity of heroes and items.
Due to its two boss objectives and carefully tuned economy, it has a stable meta with fixed lane positions for each hero role.
Has a large number of deeply interwoven mechanics, leading to a complex and deep competitive experience. Players have shown a high level of engagement with its massive esports scene: with the annual 'The International' tournament consistently offering the biggest prize-pools in esports history.
Emphasises rich and engaging hero combat. The game has many unusual skill-shots, and there no stuns or randomness. Combat instead focuses more on displacement and environmental or situational damage.
The jungle is a persistent team objective rather than an economic space for a single hero to occupy, and a variety of different creep camps and reward structures have appeared in the game over the years.
The game had an unusually refined item system, with a fullscreen shop interface, typed shortcuts, recommended items, recipe autocompletion, all items stacking with each-other (at reduced efficiency), and custom item stats like bonus ability radius or duration.
Had unusual criss-cross lanes, and emphasised the jungle as a critical team objective.
