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TiMi Studio Group - Version 8 vs Version 9
Apr 11, 2026, 02:11 PM
Correct from J3 (which is actually the FPS studio) to L1 Studio for Honor of Kings: World
Apr 15, 2026, 08:37 PM
Append pre-launch commentary: 7-8 year dev cycle at TiMi, expectations lifted by HoK MOBA esports legacy
11Overview22TiMi Studio Group (腾讯天美工作室群) is a first-party Tencent Games studio group and one of the largest game development organizations in China. TiMi is the developer of Honor of Kings: World, along with the original Honor of Kings MOBA, Call of Duty Mobile, Pokemon Unite, and other Tencent titles. For Honor of Kings: World specifically, development and live operations are handled by TiMi's L1 Studio under the leadership of Li Min (李旻), following TiMi's January 2025 internal reorganization.44January 2025 Reorganization66In January 2025, TiMi Studio Group underwent an internal reorganization that merged several pre-existing sub-studios into four consolidated R&D studios. The four new studios, per Tencent News (https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20250110A07HD400) and GamerSky coverage (https://www.gamersky.com/news/202501/1870150.shtml), are:88StudioHeadFocusJ1Ji Zefeng (纪泽锋)QQ Speed, Honor of Kings backend/legacy; ex-J1 + J5 + J6 + F1L1Li Min (李旻)Honor of Kings IP matrix, including Honor of Kings: World; ex-L1 + L2J3Yao Yuan (姚远)FPS titles: CrossFire, Call of Duty Mobile, Delta Force; ex-Y1 + Y2 + Y3T1Shan Hui (单晖)Eggy Party (元梦之星) and SLG titles1010Honor of Kings: World is developed under L1 Studio, not J3. Earlier wiki drafts and some third-party coverage incorrectly attributed HoKW to "J3 team"; J3 is actually Yao Yuan's FPS studio and is not involved in Honor of Kings: World development. Li Min, the L1 Studio GM, was the original producer of the Honor of Kings MOBA and is a Sichuan University graduate who joined Tencent in 2005.1111Honor of Kings: World Development Credits1313NameRoleSourceXinping (心平)Producer (制作人)Baidu Baike info boxSimen LvLead Game DesignerTencent Global GDC 2025 press release (https://www.tencent.com/en-us/articles/2202036.html)Big HuangLead Combat DesignerApril 2026 RPG Site overseas alpha announcementLi Min (李旻)General Manager, L1 StudioJanuary 2025 reorg coverageLi Chao (李超)Head of Tencent Games Frontier Rendering (MagicDawn tech)SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 presentation1515Xinping is the credited producer of record per Baidu Baike. Simen Lv is the public-facing lead for English press and presented the game at GDC 2025. Big Huang was the TiMi spokesperson for the April 2026 overseas closed alpha announcement. Li Min sits above the day-to-day team as the executive lead of L1 Studio. Li Chao is a Tencent-wide rendering specialist who presented the proprietary MagicDawn lighting solution at SIGGRAPH Asia 2025.1616Direct quotes from Big Huang from the April 2026 overseas alpha announcement include: "This early playtest gives us our first opportunity to get player feedback at scale that will help us shape the future of Honor of Kings: World" and "We can't wait to welcome new overseas players into the world of Primaera for the first time" (RPG Site). From Gamescom 2025, Huang added: "We've been working very hard on Honor of Kings: World and Opening Night Live was the perfect moment to give players a true taste of what's ahead" (Gematsu).1818Operating Entities2020EntityRoleTiMi Studio Group (腾讯天美工作室群)First-party Tencent studio, developerTencent Games (腾讯游戏)PublisherLevel InfiniteTencent's overseas publishing arm for global releasesChengdu Jiaxiangjiyue Technology Co., Ltd. (成都嘉享基越科技有限公司)Operating entity for Honor of Kings: World, registered capital 5 million RMBSichuan Digital Publishing Media Co., Ltd. (四川数字出版传媒有限公司)Chinese ISBN publisher of record2222The Chengdu operating entity was established in 2023 and is based in the China (Sichuan) Pilot Free Trade Zone, Chengdu High-Tech District. The legal representative is Zhao Hui (赵晖). The Chinese gaming license (国新出审〔2025〕142号, ISBN 9787498145253) was granted on January 20, 2025 to this Chengdu entity.2323Other TiMi Titles2525Beyond Honor of Kings: World, TiMi Studio Group develops the Honor of Kings MOBA (under L1 Studio post-merger), Call of Duty Mobile (under J3 Studio with Activision), Pokemon Unite (with The Pokemon Company), CrossFire Mobile, Delta Force, and other first-party and collaborative titles. The studio is headquartered in Shenzhen with major offices in Chengdu, Shanghai, and other Chinese cities.2727Sources2929Tencent News reorganization article: https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20250110A07HD400 . GamerSky reorg coverage: https://www.gamersky.com/news/202501/1870150.shtml . Tencent Global GDC 2025 press release: https://www.tencent.com/en-us/articles/2202036.html . Baidu Baike HoKW entry. TiMi L1 Studio Baidu Baike: https://baike.baidu.com/item/天美L1工作室/65299301 .31+Seven To Eight Year Development Cycle33+The April 2026 pre-launch commentary highlighted that Honor of Kings: World has been in development at TiMi for approximately seven to eight years, which is one of the longest single-project development cycles in the studio's history. For comparison, most TiMi mobile titles ship within a two to four year window from first internal prototype, so a seven-plus-year cycle marks this project as a deliberate flagship rather than a routine release. The timeline lines up with Chinese primary sources that trace the public reveal to late 2021 and infer earlier pre-production dating back to roughly 2018, giving an internal runway long enough to absorb a full engine transition from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5 mid-development. See Development History for the verified per-year timeline.35+The extended cycle is one of the reasons the project carries unusually high internal expectations within Tencent. A seven-to-eight-year investment implies a sustained head count of senior designers, engineers, and art staff, plus repeated internal milestone reviews that had the option to greenlight a smaller release and did not. The studio has signaled through both Chinese press and global events like GDC 2025, Gamescom 2025, and SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 that Honor of Kings: World is expected to anchor the Honor of Kings intellectual-property matrix for the next several years, not to be a one-season experiment.37+Expectations Raised By Honor of Kings MOBA39+A second reason the pre-launch commentary described internal expectations as elevated is that TiMi also develops the original Honor of Kings MOBA, which remains one of the largest esports titles in China by concurrent players and by prize pool. The MOBA's success created both an installed audience and a brand standard that any Honor of Kings spin-off has to meet. Chinese press framed the action RPG project as the studio's attempt to translate that brand equity into a non-MOBA genre without diluting the core game's player base, which is why Honor of Kings: World runs on separate servers from the MOBA and carries a distinct monetization model focused on cosmetics rather than character gacha.41+The practical effect for players is that the launch is being measured against a very high internal bar. Tencent's publishing arm is treating Honor of Kings: World the way a major studio treats a cornerstone IP launch: a simultaneous PC and mobile China debut on April 10, 2026; a dedicated combat mechanics video released days before launch; a season zero roster of eleven launch Heroes; and a Spring 2026 Release window that was locked in at the MOBA's own tenth anniversary event. Because the MOBA's esports audience is one of the headline targets for the new game's player acquisition, the studio is tying marketing beats for both titles together rather than treating them as independent products.
