Even though it’s probably the biggest mobile game in the world, Arena of Valor is a name unfamiliar to many in the West. But in China, the MOBA boasts 200 million registered players, 80 million daily active users, and is so addictive that time restrictions were introduced stopping kids from playing it more than one hour per day. Now, the game that’s also known as Honor of Kings, Kings of Glory, and Strike of Kings is coming to the US.
Arena of Valor is a five-on-five game and involves trying to destroy the other team’s based. It’s been called a light, mobile version of DOTA 2 and League of Legends. The publisher, Chinese giant Tencent, also owns Riot Games, having acquired the studio behind LoL back in 2015.
There are some changes to the US and European versions of the game. To make it more appealing to Westerners, the Chinese folklore heroes have been replaced with characters such as knights and fairies. It even features licensed DC stars such as Batman and Wonder Woman. Additionally, players will log in using Facebook rather than a WeChat or Tencent QQ account.
Arena of Valor is now available for free from Google Play and iTunes. Like pretty much all free mobile games, it features in-app purchases, some of which go up to $100.
It’ll be interesting to see how the game fares outside of China; most people might not warm to the idea of playing a MOBO on a smartphone rather than a PC. Arena of Valor has, however, been downloaded 2 million times in Europe since its debut in August.
Back in October, Arena of Valor made headlines after a 21-year-old woman in China reportedly lost vision in her right eye after playing the game non-stop for an entire day.
https://www.techspot.com/news/72393-one-most-popular-mobile-games-world-now-available.html
