Tencent subsidiary Timi Studio have announced Honor of Kings: World, a multi-platform, open world AAA game.
GamesIndustry.biz reports the AAA game is Timi-Studio’s efforts to reach a global audience. At this time, no release date or platform were announced. You can find the debut trailer below.
https://twitter.com/timistudios/status/1455211494736482309
The Honor of Kings mobile MOBA (known as Arena of Valor in the international version) was the first mobile game to reach over $10 billion USD in player spending. Chinese state-run media condemned the game as addictive and “poison” to young people in 2017, Tencent lost $14 billion USD in stock value.
Branching out the series into a non-online game may be due to the Chinese government’s crackdown on online games. They announced a ban in late August from children playing online video games Monday through Thursday. On Fridays, weekends, and public holidays they can only play for one hour; between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.
It is not hard to imagine Honor of Kings would have dramatically less hours played in China, and dramatically more competition for such a small time slot. As of November 2019, under 18s were previously limited to 90 minutes per-day, with three hours at weekends and holidays.
The law was designed to curb video game addiction (also known as gaming disorder), along with preventing online games from distracting them from school, family responsibilities, and causing other societal ills. Chinese tech giant Tencent recently lost almost $60 billion USD in stock value; after Chinese state media’s Economic Information Daily described online games as “spiritual opium.”
The Chinese Government also banned under 16s from live-streaming, along with other gaming and internet restrictions as part of their 10-year plan on children’s development. As such, this new AAA game may be seeking profits from overseas, as well as an offline experience that will be under (slightly) less scrutiny.
Tencent have been gearing up for more internationally sold major games with other subsidiaries as well. We previously reported how they had hired several industry veterans who had worked on “blockbuster” titles. Alleged hires included former Konami developer Kenichiro Imaizumi (Death Stranding), and Scott Warner (Planescape: Torment, Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, and Halo 4).
This studio was later revealed as LightSpeed LA (a subsidiary of Lightspeed & Quantum, itself a subsidiary of Tencent). While LightSpeed LA itself had previously announced “globally marketed” open-world cyberpunk FPS Syn at Tencent’s annual conference, LightSpeed LA working on an open-world AAA PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X game.
