China’s top mobile game is a complete League of Legends ripoff

King of Glory looks so much like League that when you fade one screenshot into another most people won’t even notice.

The rest of the world may be busy playing Pokemon Go, but China’s mobile gamers – who don’t have that luxury – are going gaga for a totally different game. It’s called King of Glory (王者荣耀) and it’s currently China’s top grossing iOS mobile game according to App Annie data. It’s the top free game for the iPhone and the number two free game on iPad.

It’s also a pretty complete copy of League of Legends.

Now, to be fair, this isn’t an issue of a Chinese company stealing IP. King of Glory was created by Tencent, which also wholly owns League of Legends creator Riot Games, so the company is well within its rights to copy League if it wants to. And given that League has been China’s top PC game for years now, it’s not hard to understand why Tencent would want to copy it to mobile.

Still, the similarities are really striking.

Compare these League of Legends screens (top) to screens from a recent professional game of King of Glory (bottom).

Bases in League of Legends (top) and King of Glory (bottom).

The base layout in the two games is very similar, and structures use homogenous coloring and design. They also function essentially the same way in both games, although King of Glory‘s base is smaller and simpler (no inhibitors or nexus towers) to promote shorter game times on mobile.

Mid lane in League of Legends (top) and King of Glory (bottom).

The aesthetic design of the game map is very similar, with green grasses giving way to carved stone pathways in the lanes. Note that the brush and minions also look very similar.

The bot lane in League of Legends (top) and King of Glory (bottom)