Arena of Valor International Championship 2025 beats Honor of Kings (for now)

Honor of Kings has been getting a lot of hype after the record-breaking audience size at the KPL Grand Finals in Beijing, China. However, mobile competitor Arena of Valor has actually surpassed its viewership when comparing both titles' International Championship touranments. 

According to Esports Charts, this year's Honor of Kings International Championship reached a peak viewership of over 696,000 viewers while Arena of Valor's International tournament had well over 742,000. 

Arena of Valor sees massive viewership in 2025

Formerly known as Strike of Kings, Arena of Valor was launched in 2016 as the international version of Honor of Kings. HoK came out in China in 2015. 

For the past decade or so, Honor of Kings has largely remained an esport title in China. Now, developers have a massive international plan set in place, with hopes of expanding the esport throughout Asia and South America. While HoK has been growing rapidly outside of China this past year, Arena of Valor saw a lot more viewership for its international tournament. 

According to Esports Charts, the peak viewership was during the Final Day Playoffs. However, the entire event was a success. It had an average viewership of 184,000 fans across its 117 hours of streaming. Interestingly enough, this is only the third-most viewed Arena of Valor event in 2025. 

Meanwhile, the Honor of Kings International Championship 2025, which had no Chinese teams, had the most viewership compared to any international HoK tournament so far. While Arena of Valor is still ahead for now, it shows that Honor of Kings is rapidly growing and may overtake Arena of Valor soon.

Especially once China's teams clash with international teams eventually. Getting the Chinese audience on board for Honor of Kings' international events will be massive. The Chinese fanbase for HoK is so big that the KPL Grand Finals match had the largest in-person esports audience in history.