Download Arena of Valor

55 million Chinese are playing it, and it brought in the highest profits on Paywall during the first quarter of 2017. Honor of kings involves warfare and fighting, allowing several players to battle each other. Hence, it is clearly a cousin of League of Legends. Quite literally, since both games are owned by Tencent. With one exception: It is designed for mobile devices. Both Bloomberg and Reuters released the word of the Chinese tech titan´s plan to bring HOK to the US. There was also mention of western Europe. Besides having completely different titles, the virtual worlds encountered by Chinese and western players will differ.

Without wishing to sound redundant, Arena of Valor is the alternate name Tencent chose for the western version. They also chose to rebrand by redesigning the more than 60 characters contained in the game. It does not come as a surprise, that the Chinese virtual reality of this game and the characters that inhabit it are inspired by China´s history and folklore. The decision to create the game based on strictly conformist and traditional ideas has simultaneously been the reason for it being a giant success as well also attracting, ironically, some criticism for not adhering to history closely enough.

The characters to be played are westernized versions of these embellished, historically Chinese characters. Although the characters played in both versions of the game differ, the gaming experience essentially remains the same. Bloomberg released a puzzling piece of news about Tencent having made a deal with Warner Bros. as well as DC comics. This means, by some undoubtedly deemed as either exciting or horrifying, that gamers will encounter Batman, who will have the ability to vanish. The formerly mentioned, Chinese counterpart goes by the name of Prince Lan Ling, derived from ancient history, deemed among one of the “hottest” members of the male sex during his alleged existence. The alliance with DC and introducing DC characters may increase AOV´s marketability to western markets.

HOK has been demonized in China´s most dominant newspaper, the People´s Daily, for “poisoning” and “drugging” the minds of Chinese gaming teenagers. Tencent reacted to the pressure and critique with the creation of features that restricts the playtime of youngsters. The official Arena of Valor website is quoted as having released the game to European markets including Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

The game is also already available in some Asian markets. Next to be graced with it´s presence and availability are the US, Spain, Italy, France and Germany. AOV´s success will largely depend on it´s ability to compete with giants such as Mobile Legends and Vain Glory.