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I wasn’t sure what to expect from my GDC 2025 preview appointment for Honor of Kings: World. It’s an upcoming action RPG MMO, a spinoff of Tencent’s mobile MOBA Honor of Kings—a game I’ve never played and rarely see mentioned in western games media, despite it being one of the best-grossing games of all time thanks to its massive popularity in China. Having bounced hard off of Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves in the past, I’ll admit I was skeptical about whether another PC-and-mobile open world action MMO could wow me.
A week and a half later, I’m still thinking about how good Honor of Kings: World’s combat felt.
An initial presentation from lead game designer Simen Lv didn’t provide a ton of clarity about what I’d be playing. Lv described how World would, like Honor of Kings, incorporate Chinese culture and mythology into a fusion of fantasy and futuristic aesthetics as a gameplay montage showed partied player characters battling mechanical phoenixes and various Sun Wukongs.
A primary goal of Honor of King’s design, Lv said, was “diverse combat.” Whether playing singleplayer or partied up—Tencent said you can play “most content” in a party—you’ll be able to instantly swap between two equipped combat styles modeled after existing Honor of Kings heroes.
Being entirely unfamiliar with the franchise, I could only identify those combat styles as “knight guy with sword and shield,” or “girl who’s a walking artillery platform,” or “man with glasses who can summon mech minions.” The art I was seeing in the montage looked impressive, but the fighting style-switching evoked memories of Genshin Impact’s character swapping, which quickly wore on me thanks to how soon its characters’ attacks and abilities started to feel repetitive.
My reservations kept growing as I sat down at Tencent’s demo station to find a UI with Genshin-style ability and ult icons and the trappings of the stamina-gated challenge areas that are a frequent feature in the field of Chinese free-to-play games from MiHoYo to Infinity Nikki. As soon as my first enemies spawned in, however, Honor of Kings: World started setting itself apart.
I’d stumbled into fathoms of combat depth I—maybe uncharitably—hadn’t expected to find.
Swapping between combat styles, I discovered, was less like switching between Genshin Impact party members and more like changing between Monster Hunter weapon types. As I started laying into grunt enemy fodder with the default longsword style, I found that in place of a simple set of attacks and canned ability animations, I was equipped with entire sets of combo strings that branched if I strung in heavy attacks and abilities.
Weapon animations had a deliberate weight and animation commitment, but could be cancelled out with tactically-timed dodges. Timing those dodges perfectly with incoming enemy attacks gave a satisfying slowdown effect, during which I could throw out a punchy counterattack.
Curiosity grabbed, I started equipping the 11 different combat styles to get a taste of each available flavor. I found a bow that could follow perfect dodges with glittering volleys of arrows, a pair of needle-like daggers that could nimbly slip around enemy attacks for a quick series of strikes; I found launchers, air combos, and parry windows. I’d stumbled into fathoms of combat depth I—perhaps uncharitably—hadn’t expected to find.
When Lv, who’d been watching me spawn waves of basic enemies to experiment on, encouraged me to move on to the demo’s main boss encounter, I was a little disappointed to be cut off from the combat style sandbox. But as I entered into battle against a maddened monkey king with a face-changing bian lian mask, I was glad I’d gotten the nudge.
Visually, the fight was stunning—even if it was punctuated by cutscenes with clunky localization and pasghetti-tier proper nouns. My monkey king foe swept swaths of the arena with blazing fire attacks before launching into whirling, acrobatic attacks with gorgeous animation work.
It’s an extremely tempting combat toolbox.
Meanwhile, I was feeling out yet another combat style: It was another longsword, but it placed a small singularity behind me whenever I dodged. With one of my abilities, I could warp back to it on command. It allowed me to set up some satisfying combos: by dodging after jumping to place a singularity in mid air, I could attack on the ground until one I needed to evade an incoming attack, at which point I’d warp to my floating singularity behind the boss to transition into an aerial combo while it was exposed.
After I stomped Sun Wukong, I jumped into an “open exploration” area—a kind of wide, subterranean grotto dungeon peppered with clusters of enemies. There, I switched back to those needle daggers I’d mentioned above, and paired them with a bulkier heavy sword style.
As I alternated between them, I realized how the combat styles could play off each other’s mechanics. With the needle daggers, one of my abilities put me into a berserker state, where I’d drain my own health to deal more damage. With the heavy sword, however, I could build an overshield by parrying enemy attacks—and I could drain that overshield to buff my daggers without jeopardizing my actual health bar.
It’s an extremely tempting combat toolbox. Given the predatory and coercive practices of its gacha game competitors, however, I’m not as thrilled to find out how World intends to make its money; Tencent didn’t provide any details about World’s monetization structure. Lv did tell me that combat styles were unlocked through story progress, so hopefully I’ll be able to experiment with its weapons and combos again without losing myself in a labyrinth of microtransactions.
Tencent hasn’t given a release date for Honor of Kings: World. Until it does, I’ll have to content myself with stringing together midair singularity combos in my daydreams.
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Kurt Indovina
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