The Honor of Kings International Championship (KIC) is back for 2023 with a huge prize pool of $10 million. The prize pool might be the same as last year’s but it continues to be the biggest for a single mobile esports event.

Honor of Kings International Championship 2023: What to expect?

Besides the huge $10 million prize pool, Tencent has only revealed the expected schedule for the competition. The official Twitter account for the game revealed that the tournament is set to begin by the “end of 2023.”

Last year, 16 teams from around the world competed for the title of world champions and a share of the prize pool. The month-long tournament featured a group stage followed by the knockouts. Eventually, China’s EStar Pro took down Gank Gaming 4-2 in an intense final to become the champions. They walked home with $3.5 million while Gank pocketed $1.3 million.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tournament had to be played in a semi-online format. The Chinese teams competed from the Jianshang Sports Complex. The international squads, on the other hand, competed from the VSPN Studio in Seoul, South Korea.

Thus, the 2023 edition might be the first-ever full KIC LAN event.

Honor of Kings global release means a better format

Honor of Kings still hasn’t been globally released. The game is currently only available in Brazil but is expected to come out in the coming months. Tencent is leaving no stone unturned to ensure that it becomes a success. Besides the huge commitment to esports, it’s also spending heavily on marketing. For example, it roped in Brazilian DJ, Alok, to promote the game with a theme song.

Tencent has already shown that the game is esports ready so fans can expect to see competitions pop up from the get-go. In fact, Tencent is already organizing an invitational tournament in South Asia, the HoK Asian Wave, before the game has been released.

Last year, the KIC 2023 qualification for international teams was through a single invitational tournament. After a global release, though, there will likely be different leagues around the world leading to better global representation at the KIC.

Furthermore, with different leagues around the world, the international teams will be better prepared against the formidable Chinese squads. In the KIC 2022, there were eight international teams, and they all occupied the bottom eight positions after getting knocked out in the group stage itself.

Will China continue to dominate Honor of Kings?

Honor of Kings was released back in 2015 in China. After the globalized version of the game, Arena of Valor, was pulled back, Tencent decided to release the game globally as well.

However, China is still years ahead in the game. Their domination in the KIC 2022 will likely continue in the years to come.

Bringing the global competition up to the level of China will be one of the challenges for Tencent. Currently, while the world is waiting around for the game to be released, the King Pro League Spring (KPL) 2023 is going on in China. The offline tournament features a prize pool of about $2.7 million.

Only time will tell how global teams catch up with China – if they even eventually do so.

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