Honor of Kings announces 2025 plans: Esports scene, new hero, tournament license, and more

Honor of Kings announces 2025 plans: Esports scene, new hero, tournament license, and more

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Global mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) title Honor of Kings (HOK) unveils its plans for 2025 after its worldwide release last June.

Before the HOK Championship finals between Malaysia’s Black Shrew Esports and Indonesia’s Dominator Esports inside the Kemang Village, James Yang, Senior Director of Global Esports Center at Level Infinite, Tencent Games, and John Zhang, Director of Honor of Kings Southeast Asia Publishing and Esports at Level Infinite, Tencent Games, announces their plans for the upcoming year.

New major tournaments

Yang announced two new tournaments for the booming HOK Global esports scene with Honor of Kings Major East and Major West.

In a separate press conference, Yang shared the reason for having two major tournaments.

“The main reason why we divided Major East and Major West is because of the time zone difference. If we have only one (in the East), then maybe for Western audiences, it would not be easy to watch,” Yang stated.

He also added that the teams involved will be sorted geographically, with the participating regions and teams to be determined.

Yang also added that the Invitational Season 3 will kick off in early 2025 featuring top teams across the planet, followed by the HOK Invitational Midseason in summer in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The esports calendar will wrap up with the 2025 HOK Championship at a later date and location.

Global ban for future tournaments

The long-running Kings Pro League (KPL) in China has been using the global ban-pick system since Fall 2018 season, something that the global HOK scene has yet to adopt since the global release has fewer heroes than their Chinese counterparts.

In 2025, the system will arrive in the global esports scene.

“This year we didn’t use a global ban, which is used in KPL. But next year, as I announced, we’re going to use a global ban,” Yang stated in the press conference.

“So gradually we’ll make this step-by-step approach to make this global esports competitive against the Chinese Pro League (KPL),” he added.

In a global ban-pick system, each team is only allowed to choose each Champion once in a series. Teams are allowed to pick Champions that have only been used by the opponents in previous games. The ruling will not be used during Game 7 of a best-of-seven series, which uses normal ban-pick rules.

Garuda Khageswara to be introduced

A new hero will be added to the HOK hero pool in early 2025.

Named as Garuda Khagesawara, the new hero is inspired by the local Indonesian deity Garuda, and was conceptualized with the help of the Indonesian community through a co-creation event.

Zhang quipped that introducing Garuda is a step in catering to local HOK markets.

“All the players here are committed to bringing the best user experience as well as the culture to everyone. So Garuda is just the start,” he said.

“Gradually we will bring the culture to each of the countries. So just step by step and let’s expect more for 2025,” The HOK SEA publishing and esports director added.

HOK to be featured in Secret Level

The game will also be one of the featured stories in the Amazon Prime Video original series Secret Level.

Produced by Amazon MGM Studios and Studio Blur, the series will showcase 15 stories from beloved video game titles with a legendary cast of characters.

The HOK feature will tell the story of Yixing, who was self-proclaimed as the genius Weiqi master in the region of Chang’an.

Tournament licenses for community bouts

Yang assured of the global game’s support to local and third-party tournaments with the introduction of HOK’s tournament license application website.

“We prepared on HOK Esports tournament license to get the application from the third party and the community to support these grassroots tournaments,” Yang said.

Various levels of official support will be provided to help the third-party and community competitions thrive.