With its Honor of Kings IP extension, Tencent Games might be following Riot Games’ example.
We recently discovered about the Honor of Kings IP expansion, which features four new significant projects centered around the game, during Tencent’s live stream celebrating the game’s seventh anniversary. But while we were there, we found glaring parallels between Tencent’s long-term plans and Riot’s already-existing aim to grow the League of Legends IP.
What is an IP expansion
The term “IP” stands for “intellectual property,” which refers to all intangible assets that a corporation has, including but not limited to all forms of media, photographs, games, etc. IP is a key component of a company’s online and digital façade.
Similar to that, Tencent’s games heavily rely on the Honor of Kings IP, which is essential to the business. And Tencent is getting ready with its Honor of Kings IP expansion by broadening the material created around the game in order to increase the influence and revenue the game has.
Parallels of the Honor of Kings IP with League of Legends IP
As previously said, we got to see a set of announcements that are similar to the existing universe of League of Legends, the flagship game of Riot Games, with the introduction of the new announcements from Tencent on the seventh-anniversary stream of Honor of Kings. Here, we’ll examine a couple of such parallels.
1. PvP fighting game: Project L and Codenamed Breaking Dawn
Tencent said that a brand-new fighting game set in the Honor of Kings universe is now being developed and will be released at some point soon during the game’s seventh anniversary webcast. Although Honor of Kings is still incredibly popular, it is generally a MOBA game. However, some players claim that MOBA games are not their thing. Consequently, releasing the new game Codename: Breaking Dawn might be a bid to appease those players.
Similar to this, game industry titans Riot Games revealed that they would be creating a new fighting game that pits players against one another during the tenth anniversary stream of the renowned League of Legends back in 2019.
The project, which is still in development and is now known as Project L, may soon reveal the game. As a result, we can see how two significant corporations are exploiting the fandom for their game to try out other endeavors and, if possible, expand the IP.
2. Autochess: TFT Mobile and King’s Chess
Earlier this year, during the League of Legends webcast commemorating its tenth anniversary, it was announced that Teamfight Tactics, or TFT, will be made available on PC, Android, and iOS. The game, which is a component of the League of Legends IP, uses an auto-battle system similar to DOTA Auto Chess.
Even though it says “chess,” it’s not actually chess because there are always just seven players or pieces present. The pieces are based on League of Legends MOBA characters, and you must assemble the greatest team you can using those characters to compete against another player in an automatic fight.
According to Tencent, Honor of Kings will soon create an autonomous chess game that will follow a startlingly similar course. The game, called King’s Chess, will use soldiers and characters from the Honor of Kings video game as the chess pieces. You must aim to put up the strongest team to beat your opponent. Additionally, based on the first-look trailers, the game does appear to be fantastic and, to put it mildly, enjoyable.
3. Open-world title: Project F and Honor of Kings World
In the aforementioned Honor of Kings stream celebrating its seventh anniversary, we also witnessed the announcement of a third game and the final, and largest, game of the stream. In the open-world game Honor of Kings: World, players can freely explore the Honor of Kings universe while engaging in other activities like taking down bosses and chatting with friends online. It will be comparable to Genshin Impact and have both flight and an underwater setting.
Riot Games is rumored to be developing an ARPG under the codename Project F. Along with games like VALORANT, Wild Rift, and Project L, the game was said to be based on the well-known game Runeterra.
Contrary to the games described earlier, Project F has gotten very little information regarding its current level of development, making the game’s future extremely hazy. But even so, it may still be compared to Honor of Kings: World and be compared to itself.
4. Animated series: Arcane and Baili Brothers
You have probably heard of Arcane if you keep up with popular web series or keep up with the latest video games. Due to its excellent animation, well-done fight scenes, and compelling plot, the well-liked, highly regarded animated series recently attracted a lot of interest and traction.
The nine-episode sitcom, which mostly centers on Jinx and Vi, is based on the League of Legends universe. The League of Legends IP was given a whole new perspective as a result, and once this concept was realized, it took off.
As evidenced by their announcement of the Baili Brothers movie, Honor of Kings is currently looking to use a similar approach. Shouyue Baili and Xu Baili, two brothers who play characters in the video game Honor Kings, are the subjects of the film. The movie’s fascinating trailer gives off the impression that it has great potential to succeed if done right. But will it be a quality-based rival to Arcane? That is still up in the air.