Revision 13

Overview

Honor of Kings: World launched on PC in mainland China on April 10, 2026. The PC launch was first announced as a Spring 2026 window at the Honor of Kings 10th anniversary event on October 25 to 26, 2025, then officially date-locked to April 10, 2026 on March 20, 2026. Pre-download opened on April 7, 2026 at 10:00 local time, and the PC servers went live on April 10, 2026. A mobile release for iOS and Android is scheduled within the same month of April 2026, with an exact mobile launch date still to be announced as of April 11, 2026.

Launch Details

Launch Season (S0)

The April 10, 2026 launch opens the game's S0 Season. S0 introduces the foundational content of Honor of Kings: World including 11 playable Resonances (combat styles), the Jixia Academy hub and its surrounding plains, an introductory main story arc, the Talent System (天赋), the summoned spirits Huanling system, housing (学舍 / Study Lodge), and multiple PvP modes. The launch build represents roughly one tenth of the full map as designed, with additional regions planned for post-launch seasons.

The Launch 11 Resonances

The S0 launch hero roster confirmed by Baidu Baike primary text and the Tencent world.qq.com S0 landing page consists of 11 resonances:

• Child of the Primal Flow (元流之子, the player protagonist with a unique four-weapon cycle)

• Dongfang Yao (东方曜)

• Xi Shi (西施)

• Meng Ya (蒙犽)

• Master Lu Ban (鲁班大师)

• Sun Bin (孙膑)

• Wang Zhaojun (王昭君)

• Jialuo (伽罗)

• Mulan (花木兰)

• Kai (铠)

• Leng Chun (冷春, S0 original hero, not from the MOBA)

Pre-Launch Timeline

The path from announcement to the April 10, 2026 PC launch is documented by multiple Chinese primary sources:

Mobile and Global Outlook

The mobile release (iOS and Android) is scheduled within April 2026 per Baidu Baike primary text. Tencent has not yet published a specific mobile launch date. All mobile platforms will share servers and cross-save with the PC version, so players can start on PC and continue on mobile or vice versa. For regions outside mainland China, no global launch date has been announced. Level Infinite has confirmed that an overseas release will follow the China launch, and the first-ever overseas closed PC alpha test opened registration in early April 2026 for select players in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Free-to-Play Model

Honor of Kings: World is free-to-play with no upfront purchase. Monetization is cosmetic-only; there is no character gacha. All balance-affecting systems (Resonances, Talents, 唤灵 summoned spirits, Equipment, PvP) are fully free-to-earn. See Monetization for the confirmed storefront structure.

Installation and Specs

PC installation requires approximately 72.5 GB of download and 100 GB of recommended free disk space. The minimum PC specification is Windows 10 22H2, Intel Core i5-9600, 16 GB RAM, and GTX 1060 5 GB. Mobile minimums are Snapdragon 865 or equivalent with 8 GB RAM on Android, and iPhone 11 (Apple A13) with 4 GB RAM on iOS. Both mobile platforms require approximately 40 GB of storage. See Technical Specifications for detailed requirements and recommended settings.

Mobile Launch Date Now Confirmed: April 17, 2026

After the April 10, 2026 PC launch, Tencent held back the exact mobile date for a few days of stabilization. On April 10, 2026 (same day as the PC launch), the team locked the iOS and Android launch to April 17, 2026. Pre-download for the mobile client opened on April 15, 2026 at 8:00 AM Beijing Time.

All three clients (PC, iOS, and Android) share the same server environment, the same account system, and the same progression. There is no separate mobile server. Players who complete the prologue and early Jixia Chapter content on PC can continue those exact saves on mobile or Tencent Cloud Gaming at launch.

China Simultaneous PC And Mobile Debut

The April 2026 pre-launch commentary was explicit that, in mainland China, Honor of Kings: World launched on PC and mobile on the same calendar day: April 10, 2026. This differs from the tracked-region mobile window in this wiki, which uses April 17, 2026 as its mobile anchor date (see Mobile Launch). For the China debut, both clients went live together with the full S0 season content, the same server environment, and the same account system wired for cross-platform progression from minute one. Pre-launch coverage called this simultaneous debut a deliberate break from the usual 'PC first, mobile later' pattern common to Tencent action RPGs of similar scale, and it allowed Tencent to front-load the account-bound cross-save story as a headline feature rather than a delayed follow-up beat.

The practical effect on launch-day traffic was that a single mainland China account could start the prologue on PC in the morning and pick up the same save on a phone or tablet by lunchtime. The Cross-Platform article documents the full list of what transfers between clients (account level, hero unlocks, gear and talent loadouts, currency balances, housing layout, and social surfaces). Because PC and mobile are on the same servers, friends on different devices can see and party with each other from the first hours of launch day without any cross-play matchmaking configuration.

Seven To Eight Year Culmination

The pre-launch commentary also framed the April 10, 2026 PC launch as the culmination of roughly a seven to eight year development cycle at TiMi Studio Group. Tracing that cycle back from launch day places pre-production in the 2018 to 2019 range, which predates the public October 2021 reveal in the Development History timeline by several years. A cycle of this length is unusually long for a TiMi project and reflects the scale of the flagship ambitions the studio attached to the Honor of Kings intellectual-property matrix after the MOBA's sustained esports success.

One visible consequence of the long cycle is the engine story. The project was originally built on Unreal Engine 4, transitioned to Unreal Engine 5 between 2022 and 2024, and shipped on UE5 with the proprietary MagicDawn lighting layer presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2025. Shorter projects rarely absorb a full engine transition mid-development, which is one of the clearer signs that the seven-to-eight-year framing is not marketing inflation. Another visible consequence is the launch-day coordination: a simultaneous PC-plus-mobile China debut with cross-platform progression live on day one implies sustained cross-team work between the client teams and the server infrastructure team that a shorter cycle could not plausibly have supported.