Overview
The story and lore of Honor of Kings: World were developed in collaboration with Liu Cixin, the acclaimed Chinese science fiction author best known for The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy). This collaboration was announced during the game's initial reveal in October 2021 and represents one of the highest-profile writer partnerships in Chinese game development. Liu Cixin's involvement helped shape the game's distinctive narrative identity, which fuses traditional Chinese mythology with science fiction concepts in a way that sets it apart from conventional fantasy RPGs.
About Liu Cixin
Liu Cixin (born June 23, 1963) is China's most celebrated science fiction author and one of the most prominent science fiction writers globally. His most famous work, The Three-Body Problem (published in Chinese in 2008, English translation in 2014), won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, making it the first translated novel to receive that honor. The complete Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy (The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Death's End) has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and has been adapted into both a Chinese television series and a Netflix series.
Liu Cixin's writing is characterized by grand-scale science fiction concepts, hard science foundations, and philosophical themes about humanity's place in the cosmos. His work frequently explores first contact scenarios, the Fermi paradox, and the tension between technological progress and existential risk. These themes, particularly the idea of humanity confronting forces far beyond its understanding, resonate directly with the narrative framework of Honor of Kings: World.
Poetry Cloud Inspiration
The collaboration draws particular inspiration from Liu Cixin's 1997 short story "Poetry Cloud" (also translated as "The Poetry Cloud"). In this story, an advanced alien civilization attempts to master the art of classical Chinese poetry by brute-force generating every possible combination of Chinese characters, creating a "cloud" of poetry that encompasses all possible poems. The story explores themes of art, creativity, and whether true artistic expression can be replicated or surpassed by technological means.
Elements of "Poetry Cloud" are visible in Honor of Kings: World's approach to its setting. Primaera, the game's world, is a place where ancient cultural traditions (drawn from Chinese mythology, philosophy, and history) coexist with advanced or supernatural technologies (the Flow, mechanical constructs, and other high-concept systems). This blend of the ancient and the futuristic mirrors the thematic core of "Poetry Cloud," where the oldest human art form meets the most advanced technology.
Mythology Meets Science Fiction
Liu Cixin's most visible influence on Honor of Kings: World is the mythological-science fiction fusion that characterizes Primaera's creation myth and underlying lore. The game's backstory includes science fiction elements that are unusual for a fantasy RPG:
The Ark: According to the game's lore, humanity arrived in Primaera aboard a vessel called the Ark, fleeing a dying homeworld. This science fiction origin story grounds the world's mythology in a recognizable sci-fi premise.
Flow as technology and magic: The Flow, the energy system that powers abilities and drives the world's ecology, straddles the line between magical force and scientific phenomenon. It can be studied, measured, and engineered (as the College of Mechanics demonstrates), but it also defies purely rational explanation.
Ancient records with sci-fi undertones: Historical texts within the game world describe events that sound mythological on the surface but contain hints of advanced technology, lost science, or contact with non-human intelligences.
This layered approach to world-building, where myth and science are not opposing forces but different lenses on the same reality, is a hallmark of Liu Cixin's literary style. His inspiration co-creation partnership gave the development team thematic direction for building a world that feels both ancient and unexpectedly modern in its underlying logic.
Impact on Game Narrative
The collaboration's influence extends beyond the creation myth into the game's ongoing narrative themes. The main story frequently raises questions about the nature of reality, the origins of the Flow, and whether the mythological figures of Primaera are truly supernatural beings or remnants of a more scientifically advanced past. These questions are left deliberately ambiguous, in keeping with Liu Cixin's tendency to pose grand philosophical dilemmas without neat resolutions.
The game's NPCs and lore entries reflect this dual nature. Characters like Zhuangzi, who questions the boundary between dreams and reality, and Mozi, who approaches the Flow through engineering rather than mysticism, embody the tension between mythological and scientific worldviews that the collaboration established.
Announcement and Reception
The collaboration with Liu Cixin was announced during Honor of Kings: World's initial reveal event in October 2021. At the time, TiMi Studio Group described the partnership as a way to give the game a narrative foundation that went beyond typical fantasy RPG storytelling. The announcement generated significant attention in the Chinese gaming community, given Liu Cixin's status as a cultural icon in China. International audiences also took note, as The Three-Body Problem's global popularity made Liu Cixin one of the few Chinese authors with strong name recognition abroad.
Game journalists and industry observers noted that the collaboration signaled Tencent's ambition for Honor of Kings: World to compete on narrative quality with major international RPG franchises. Having a writer of Liu Cixin's caliber involved in the world-building lent the project a level of literary credibility unusual for a game adaptation of a MOBA property.
Key Takeaways
Liu Cixin's involvement was announced in October 2021 during the game's initial reveal.
The collaboration draws inspiration from his 1997 short story "Poetry Cloud."
His influence is most visible in the game's creation myth (the Ark, humanity fleeing a dying world) and the dual nature of the Flow as both magic and science.
The narrative blends Chinese mythology with science fiction in a way that mirrors Liu Cixin's literary style.
The collaboration helped establish Honor of Kings: World's narrative identity as distinct from the original MOBA.