Tencent’s Honour of Kings spin-off gets green light as China approves 136 new games in January

While the launch date is unclear, there is hope it will be rolled out this year as it was featured in the iPhone 16 release last September

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A screenshot from the trailer for Honour of Kings: World. Image: TiMi Studio Group

Ann Caoin Shanghai

Published: 8:30pm, 22 Jan 2025Updated: 3:21pm, 23 Jan 2025

Tencent Holdings’ Honour of Kings: World is among China’s first batch of video games approved in 2025, raising expectations that the title, which is still under development, will turn out to be the latest hit from the world’s largest gaming company.

The open-world, action role-playing game, a spin-off of the company’s massively popular multiplayer online battle arena game Honour of Kings, is one of the 136 new titles approved in January by the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), the agency responsible for licensing video games in China.

While the launch date of Honour of Kings: World remains unclear, when Apple unveiled the iPhone 16 series last September it showed a small gameplay demo of the title, saying it would “come to iPhone” in 2025.

“Everyone from the project team is very excited [after getting the licence],” according to a post on the official Honour of Kings: World WeChat account on Tuesday, which said the main storyline has been “basically completed”.

Players have high expectations for the title, as Tencent has tried to combine cutting-edge graphics with storytelling based on various characters in Honour of Kings, which was the top-grossing mobile game in Apple’s China App Store last month, according to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower.

Timi Studio Group, Tencent’s in-house game studio in charge of both Honour of Kings and the new spin-off, reportedly started developing the game around 2020 and released the first trailer the following year.