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Honor of Kings is getting ready to shake things up with its biggest update yet. We got the opportunity to interview Dean Huang, the game’s Producer, about the Honor of Kings Plus update that’s bringing some pretty exciting changes to the popular MOBA game.
From a brand-new hero that lets you pick your own role to real-time voice translation and major battlefield adjustments, this update seems designed to address what players have been asking for. Here’s what Huang shared about the team’s vision and the thinking behind these major changes.
Meet Flowborn: The Hero That Adapts to You
The star of this update is definitely Flowborn, a completely new type of hero that breaks away from traditional MOBA rules. Unlike other heroes who are locked into specific roles, Flowborn lets players choose whether they want to be a Tank, Mage, or Marksman.
“With Flowborn we wanted to break from the norms and have a Hero that represented the player themselves,” Huang explained. “Players can choose their preferred role and fight alongside their teammates. We believe this will offer the most personalized gameplay experience available across the MOBA genre.”
Flowborn – Customized costumes are coming soon
🌊The first multi-class hero, Flowborn will be joining the Gorge soon. You can not only select a class, but also customize the costumes! High school style, sports style, ethnic style, everything is just waiting for you to define!… pic.twitter.com/BhYLFJvkFF
— Honor of Kings (@HonorOfKings) June 21, 2025
What makes Flowborn really interesting is the ability to switch between different attribute buffs during a match. The hero uses something called “Flow” energy from the game’s world to change roles and get different enhancements. If you’re facing a lot of assassins, you can switch to survival buffs. Want to support your team better? Switch to movement speed buffs for better map control.
But don’t worry about balance issues – once you pick Flowborn’s role during the ban/pick phase, you’re stuck with it for the whole match. “This prevents situations such as choosing the tank role during BP but switching to a mage in-game,” Huang noted, ensuring team strategy stays consistent.
Breaking Down Language Barriers
One of the coolest additions is the real-time voice-to-text and translation system. Right now it supports Chinese, English, Indonesian, and Malay, with more languages coming later.
The biggest challenge? Regional accents and dialects. “Although players speak the same language (such as Indonesian), people from different regions have distinct local accents and dialects,” Huang shared. “Our team spent a significant amount of time collecting speech samples from different local areas to complete the training of the speech AI recognition model.”
Rewarding Good Play, Even When You Lose
The update introduces something called “Reach for the Stars” – a system that can reward players who perform really well even if their team loses. This might sound like it could encourage selfish play, but Huang says they’ve thought about that.
“Our definition of a ‘standout player’ does not include those who hoard resources or undermine team coordination,” he explained. “In fact, such behavior results in low teamwork scores, which disqualifies them from receiving system-based rewards.”
The system looks at things like assists and team participation, not just kills. So players who work well with their team but still lose can get recognition for their efforts.
Major Battlefield Changes
The team is making some big changes to how the game flows. They’re adding more minions to mid-lane waves before the 4-minute mark and removing the mid-lane river spirit. The goal is to encourage more variety in mid-lane hero picks instead of everyone just picking roaming heroes.
“This change is aimed at encouraging more diverse mid-lane hero picks, instead of the usual roam-heavy mid laners,” Huang said. “Players can actively pressure their opponents in lane to control the pace of the game.”
They’re also removing the super minion mechanic that used to appear in all three lanes when they were breached. “Previously, when all three lanes were breached, the arrival of super minions in all lanes made it almost impossible for the losing team to stage a comeback,” Huang explained. This should give losing teams more chances to turn things around.
More Regional Heroes Coming
When asked about bringing more original heroes to the international version, Huang confirmed they want to create more characters that connect with different regions. They recently added Fatih, a character based on Turkish history, and plan to continue this approach.
“We definitely want to introduce more original Heroes, including those that pay homage to or are influenced by regional cultures that resonate with regional players,” he said.
A New Teleportation System
Players have been asking for teleportation abilities for a long time, and the team is finally delivering. While Huang didn’t go into too much detail, he mentioned they’ve made careful balance adjustments to make sure it adds something fresh without breaking the game.
“Players have long been asking for a teleportation skill, and we also hope to make it a permanent feature on the battlefield,” he said.
The Honor of Kings Plus update represents a major step forward for the game, with changes that seem designed to give players more freedom while keeping the competitive balance intact. Whether these changes will live up to expectations remains to be seen, but it’s clear the development team is listening to player feedback and isn’t afraid to try something different.
