Tencent is making a TV series about China’s biggest game
Live-action show to follow teenager trying to become a professional Honor of Kings player
It’s one of the world’s biggest games. And now it’s going to become a TV show.
Tencent says it’ll make a live-action series about Honor of Kings, the hit smartphone title known as Arena of Valor in the West. It has around 200 million monthly players -- that’s over twice as many as Pokémon Go did at its peak.
The game is effectively a mobile version of esports favorites League of Legends or Dota 2, using characters from Chinese folklore. But the TV show doesn’t follow the game’s story.
The TV series follows a Chinese teenager who plays Honor of Kings, battling the odds to become a professional gamer -- and following the footsteps of his elder brother, whose gaming career was derailed by unfortunate events.
It’s based on a serial story by a famed online novelist. There’s no release date for the TV show yet, but the online serial was just published last week and has been viewed over 120,000 times.