The global version of Honor of Kings is still young and growing but the team behind it already has big plans in store.
It’s been a very eventful 2025 for Honor of Kings as the conclusion of KIC 2025 marks the end of the first full year of their global competitive scene. While Malaysia still dominates the global scene, the gap is clearly closing while the game continues to evolve.
What we can definitely say is that the Philippines got a massive spotlight in Honor of Kings this year. Between two major international tournaments being held here, the release of the playable hero Lapulapu, and the SB19’s sizzling hot performance during the KIC 2025 grand finals, it’s no secret that there was a massive push for the Philippines this year. So the question is: will this momentum continue and can we expect the same treatment for other regions?
We got the opportunity to ask those exact questions to Rex Wang, Game Operations Director of Honor of Kings Publishing. Aside from revealing their plans for the 2026 global competitive year, Rex also took the time to speak with the media about their strategies and goals for Honor of Kings global moving forward.
“The Philippines is an important market for us,” said Rex on the big focus on the Philippines this year. “We obviously listen to our global players but we see the passion and potential of Filipino players. We want to attract more Filipino players and our collaboration with SB19 and release of Lapulapu is just the start.”
Looking into the Culture
“We’re not just doing localization with HoK,” continued Rex. “Localization is not enough for us – we need to draw inspiration from the local culture, like what we’re doing with the upcoming Indonesia skin for HoK Invitational Season 4. I think that’s a very important step for us to gain new players. It allows us to add more unique and fun content in our game and helps make it more accessible.”
The addition of Lapulapu into Honor of Kings has definitely done a lot to bring attention to the game. Having a cultural icon and representation in a massive multiplayer game really opens the door to not just new players but existing ones as well. It’s a strategy that Rex said they’ll keep on doing in the future.
“While we were developing Lapulapu, one feedback that we kept getting from local players was that they were hoping that he would speak in Visaya. While we were unfortunately unable to do that, it’s valuable feedback that tells us how we can improve our localization. It helps shape our attitude moving forward as we develop more unique regional heroes.”
“We want players to fall in love with our game,” added Rex. “What we’ve found is that this partnership with SB19 and the release of Lapulapu has made the community very excited. When we saw that, we knew that we were on the right track. So in the future we’ll continue investing in similar partnerships and projects and we’ll definitely be paying closer attention to our users’ feedback.”
Closing the Gap
While Honor of Kings continues to grow its global scene, we had to address the elephant in the room about the disparity among their regions. Currently, discussions about the global scene don’t even include China as they’re so far ahead of the other regions. And even then, Malaysia has other global regions beat by a country mile, as evidenced by the KIC 2025 results.
“We’re all aware of how big HoK is in China,” said Rex, referencing the China league’s recent Guiness World Record. “That’s really my biggest challenge right now. But what I can say is that we’re working as fast as we can to bridge the gap between the two servers. We also have other initiatives to help raise the competitiveness of other regions.”
Rex mentioned the Chinese bootcamp that took place right before KIC 2025, where global teams got the opportunity to learn and train from the more developed Chinese teams and coaches. They plan on continuing initiatives like these to help raise the bar for the global teams. But of course their final goal is to have all their players playing on the same server.
“[HoK global esports] is still growing so we’re taking it step by step. We need to help improve our global teams. And eventually, we want our Chinese and global players playing the same game and competing on the same level.”
It sounds like Rex and his team still have a lot of work to do but they have a clear vision of what HoK esports will look like in the future. They see the passion of the communities and the drive of the players, and they plan to keep on nurturing that fire.
“For me, I don’t think we want to make it a balanced ecosystem,” said Rex. “We want to make a competitive ecosystem. The team that works harder, trains harder, and has the better competitive drive deserves to be rewarded. That’s the charm of esports. We’re doing our best to support the global teams but ultimately we want our scene to always be competitive.”
Banner photo from HoK Philippines Esports.
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