Honor of Kings World Cup 2025 shatters game’s viewership records
Over the weekend, a few events at the Esports World Cup 2025 concluded, including Honor of Kings. It created new livestreaming records for a game that is still relatively new to global audiences, having only become available outside China, its home for so long, in 2024.
The Honor of Kings World Cup 2025 had quite a few firsts, including being the first edition as it took the slot for the title’s midseason tournament. It marked the return of the World Cup moniker after the Arena of Valor World Cup 2021 and was the first competition of the series under the Honor of Kings banner. Lastly, the KWC 2025 marked the debut of the GSL format for the Group Stage at a major HoK event.
The Honor of Kings World Cup 2025 saw 18 of the world’s best sides compete for a massive prize pool of $3 million at the Boulevard Riyadh City, 5v5 Arena. After a little over ten days of action, AG Super Play edged past Talent Gaming in an all-Chinese final to clinch the trophy and take home $750,000. It came back from 1:3 down to pocket 1,000 crucial Club Championship Points, putting the esports organization in second on the table.
The final was by far the most popular match at the Honor of Kings event, touching 653,309 Peak Viewers (PV). The next-best series only did 108,184 live viewers, showing that while the game is reaching newer audiences with each new tournament, interest needs to be generated more consistently throughout rather than just for the games that count, like those in the Playoffs.
Moreover, Chinese teams remain the dominant force in Honor of Kings esports when it comes to viewership. Most of the top matches from global events tend to have at least one Chinese name. Crucially, their participation helped improve the quality of action for fans, as they are by far the most experienced in the game’s competitive segment.
The Honor of Kings World Cup 2025 created new records across metrics. It emerged as the game’s most popular tournament ever, beating the previous record holder by around 36%. Interestingly, the top two entries from this leaderboard have both been held in Saudi Arabia, with the Honor of Kings Invitational Midseason 2024 being the other entry.
Most-watched and popular Honor of Kings tournaments ever
The KWC 2025 also created a new watch time record for Honor of Kings, ending as the game’s second competition to cross the 3 million Hours Watched mark. It topped this metric despite a more compact format than last year’s EWC event, mostly because of the involvement of more Chinese teams and audiences and the increased involvement of Tagalog viewers (from the Philippines), as they had two more sides to support this time around.
Among all the Esports World Cup 2025 tournaments held so far, the Honor of Kings World Cup 2025 is in fourth spot by peak concurrent viewers. Only entries from more established global games like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, League of Legends, and PUBG Mobile are ahead.
AG Super Play’s success has helped it accrue 1,950 points and put it second on the Club Championship standings, which is led by Team Vitality on 2,400 points. The other big movers over the weekend were Basilisk and OpTic Gaming, the winners of the StarCraft II and the CoD events, respectively, as they got off the mark with 1,000 points each.
It’s been another successful sojourn for Honor of Kings to the Middle East, with the game gaining more recognition and attention each year. With the mobile multiplayer online battle arena genre dominated by Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, there is a genuine chance for this Tencent Games offering to position itself as the second-best option for a global audience that doesn’t seem to tire of its love for video gaming.
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