Wolves first to jump onto Honor of Kings expansion hype train

Esports News
September 8, 2021
Marcus Wong

It’s always a good sign of brewing success when a Premier League football club decides to get involved in Esports. The Wolverhampton Wanderers, aka the Wolves, announced their acquisition of Honor of Kings pro team, QGHappy. While traditional football fans are slightly sceptical of Wolves’ move, perhaps there are underlying benefits for Wolves to venture into Honor of Kings (HOK).

The expansion comes at a crucial time for the title, as game developers decided to make their esports entire scene global.

Image source: Wolverhampton Wanderers on Twitter

Wolves’ power move to debut in HOK Esports

This is definitely no ordinary acquisition by Wolves and fans consider this a power move into the rising HOK scene. For starters, QGHappy is highly regarded as a formidable team, having gained over $5M in winnings from HOK tournaments.

Their most notable achievement is the recent Honor of Kings World Championship Cup 2021 (HOK World Cup 2021) victory, earning them a ticket into the hall of fame. While Wolves’ decision to acquire a team of such calibre is definitely a wise investment, let’s not forget that the next World Cup will not be a breeze anymore.

Moreover, HOK enjoys the idea of incorporating football-themed skins for their characters, where they already made one with Manchester City jersey skin. As HOK becomes more popular, we might even get Wolves jersey in-game skin as well, which is an absolute win for publicity.

Tencent merges the major mobile MOBA titles

Following the grand showcase of HOK World Cup 2021, Tencent isn’t one to shy away from developing new games in recent years. Their brainchild, Arena of Valor, came as a shocking surprise for the fans since its debut in 2016. While never reaching the scope and size its twin game gained in China, AoV has carved a nice niche of the western market over the years.

To step things up, Tencent has once again made a bold move to put Arena of Valor into the spotlights. Hence, the announcement to join forces with Honor of Kings in hopes to create the Frankenstein of mobile MOBAs.

Both games are technically the same, with relatively similar mechanics. The defining difference are character playstyles developed over the years, and diverging development that has occurred over the past 24 months. Of course, we are all clueless how exactly Tencent plans to incorporate both games into a single ecosystem. The company did share a glimpse of their plans and ideas by creating an “esports version” of the two games combined. The new game will have characters from both games, presumably to showcase the two games’ synergy. We will have to wait until the official debut of the game for further insights.

Having the Wolves get into competitive HoK acquiring a championship team, seems less surprising when we take into consideration the scale of the competitive system Tencent will create next year.

The Arena of Valor World Cup 2022 (AWC 2022)

AWC 2022, is set for October 2022, where it will debut their Esports version of AOV. That means we can expect the regional leagues and qualifiers to begin earlier next year, giving us a preview at Tencent’s Esports take on the joint venture. Considering the generous prize pool of $8M, Tencent clearly intends on making AWC 2022 grander than any previous iterations. For instance, the AWC 2021’s prize pool of $5M still pales in comparison to what’s install for us next year.

Speaking of diversity and inclusion, fans from every region will have a chance to participate. There are regional leagues in five regions; Asia, North America, South America, Middle East, and Europe. After all, it wouldn’t be a championship-grade World Cup without a global spirit.

As far as we are concerned, the rest of the world, besides Asian teams, haven’t picked up on these titles so heavily. Even in terms of Honor of Kings betting, the only market featured is the Chinese King Pro League. We might see a monumental shift come 2022, in terms of competitive play and esports betting. The most intriguing part of the collab is that we finally get to see the AOV and HOK champions collide.

Tying back to the original storyline, Wolves made one of the smartest esports acquisitions I have seen in 2021. Do not be surprised if more sports and esports teams follow suit in the following months.

We have no doubt that Tencent can deliver a well-made Esports version of their already popular AOV and HOK games. The real gamechanger would be how much higher Tencent plans to push their new MOBA to rival Wild Rift and Mobile Legends. For more details on the craze surrounding Honor of Kings and Arena of Valor, keep track with our Esports News as we commit fully to this upcoming esports markets.

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