Recommended Video
It was a bumpy ride but the first season of HoK’s professional league in the Philippines delivered where it counts.
PKL Spring 2025 has concluded, our three representatives for the HoK World Cup 2025 have been decided, and now we can take a good look at its inaugural season.
Right off the bat, I think everyone knew that the PKL Spring 2025 was going to have an uphill battle. Honor of Kings is a relatively new game in the Philippines and it’s competing against well-established behemoths in the industry.
Still, developers TiMi Studios and organizers Level Infinite were willing to take on that challenge. They’re giving it an honest try, so how did their first run fair?
Dominance and Underdogs
I gave my thoughts about the debut week of the PKL Spring 2025 before. Nothing was ever going to hide the smaller scale of the league but at least some of the teams were stepping up as the weeks went on.
Blacklist International’s regular season dominance notwithstanding, there were genuinely surprising movements among the teams in the standings. Teams with imports like ACT Esports and RWE Kadiliman did really well for themselves despite the language barrier. Then there was BOOM Esports’ steady rise in the standings as they climbed back to the top of the Philippine HoK scene.
Unfortunately, other teams didn’t show the same levels of improvement. Plus, the skill gap between the top and bottom half teams didn’t feel like it got any smaller. Of course, more time and experience is needed for that to happen but man, did it make watching some games feel like a slog.
Trial by Fire
But really, it’s the playoffs that everyone’s looking forward to. That’s where the PKL Spring 2025 can make its biggest impression and it certainly did, both good and bad.
It’s not a good omen when the first match of the playoffs was delayed by about an hour. Technical difficulties continued to bog down the first couple of games of match one, resulting in frequent pauses and delays. And if that wasn’t enough, the entire playoffs venue of One Ayala Concourse lost power in the middle of game three, match one.
By that point, there were roughly three hours of delays and it was still only the first match. The technical difficulties was something that the organizers could’ve mitigated or even prevented but for an entire mall’s power to go out? Disastrous, but what else can anyone do but persevere. And they did, with day one of the PKL Spring 2025 ending well past mall hours.
Carry On and Move On
Despite the difficulties of the playoffs and the tepid response of the regular season, I still think there’s potential here.
The playoffs got better over the next few days with the last day running without a hitch. Grand finals itself was also an electrifying experience as BOOM completed its redemption arc. They reclaimed their throne after handing Blacklist their first and only match loss in a full seven game thriller.
Teams were also able to show what they were capable of when the stakes were high. The fact that ACT Esports became the surprise inclusion to our KWC 2025 representatives means that there’s some real fire still hidden among the PKL teams.
All in all, the PKL Spring 2025 experience was rough but it was still able to deliver what it needed. There’s potential for strong storylines and exciting matches in the PKL. They just need to find the right way to bring that into the forefront.
Banner photo by Ramon Domingo.