Tencent allegedly has a global version of Kings of Glory in the works
A few days ago, Tencent announced they were going to abandon Arena of Valor‘s marketing for Europe and North America. The intent of the move was to put more focus on the League of Legends mobile version the Chinese company is currently developing together with Riot Games. Now, several leaks have appeared that suggest that Kings of Glory, the Chinese version of AoV, will soon launch for the global audience as well.
A Reddit post uploaded to r/arenaofvalor says that Tencent has already finished making text localization files in English for Kings of Glory. The characters will reportedly speak in English as well.
Journey to the West
A Korean King Pro League caster confirmed this information in a post in Chinese. In it, he explained that the game was likely getting an English version. Furthermore, a documentary for Western audiences about Kings of Glory seems to be under development as well.
Several Arena of Valor North American pros will participate in the documentary. According to Tencent itself, it will air sometime in June or July. This is a very powerful tool in order to market the game before its global release. A teaser of the documentary recently saw the light on YouTube.
Additionally, one of the best junglers from NA and an Arena of Valor World Cup contender with BM Gaming, Michael “Zane” Cosgun, recently revealed in his stream that the game will come out in the second half of the year. According to him, current AoV players will unfortunately not be able to transfer their accounts to Kings of Glory. The reason he gave was pretty logical: simply put, they are completely different games.
KoG vs. AoV
At first sight, KoG and AoV may look like the same, and officially, they are. The former, however, is heavily based on Chinese mythology, which affects its heroes and map. Moreover, its mechanics are slightly different as well.
In Arena of Valor, Tencent included DC heroes in order to make it more appealing for the western audience. The move, however, did not pay out, as the game gathered no more than 150,000 daily players. This was absolutely nothing when compared to the massive number of fans Arena of Valor gathers in certain parts of Southeast Asia.
No matter if a global version of Kings of Glory is actually in the works, Arena of Valor will most likely not cease activity. So far, Tencent has not made a statement about the matter. Should the leaks be true, however, a new era for competitive mobile gaming in the West may just be approaching.
