Nintendo announce MOBA Arena of Valor for the Switch

Last night’s Nintendo Direct brought a surprising revelation for the esports crowd, mentioned in passing as Nintendo paraded a variety of Switch games in front of the audience. 

Tencent’s mobile MOBA, a 5 v 5 offering, is coming to Nintendo Switch. You might not know the name Arena of Valor, the title it wore when launching recently in Europe and North America.. It’s also been known as Honor of Kings in China, where it’s been out for two years, and also Strike of Kings and Realm of Valor. 

Honor of Kings is the biggest game in China right now, by a big margin. The game is available Android and iOS and has more than 200 million players in it’s home territory, with 55 million daily active users. It’s so popular that Tencent recently had to start limiting gamers daily playtime. 

For comparison, Dota 2 currently has 12.5m monthly active players, while League of Legends has 250m monthly active players. These figures are worldwide, while Honor of Kings is achieving this in a single region. 

Arena of Valor coming to Switch then, is massive news, with one of the biggest games in the world making its console debut on Nintendo’s portable fondleslab.