Honor of Kings Arena: an Environment for Generalization in Competitive Reinforcement Learning
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Abstract (arXiv)
This paper introduces Honor of Kings Arena, a reinforcement learning (RL) environment based on Honor of Kings, one of the world's most popular games at present. Compared to other environments studied in most previous work, ours presents new generalization challenges for competitive reinforcement learning. It is a multi-agent problem with one agent competing against its opponent; and it requires the generalization ability as it has diverse targets to control and diverse opponents to compete with. We describe the observation, action, and reward specifications for the Honor of Kings domain and provide an open-source Python-based interface for communicating with the game engine. We provide twenty target heroes with a variety of tasks in Honor of Kings Arena and present initial baseline results for RL-based methods with feasible computing resources. Finally, we showcase the generalization challenges imposed by Honor of Kings Arena and possible remedies to the challenges. All of the software, including the environment-class, are publicly available at https://github.com/tencent-ailab/hok_env . The documentation is available at https://aiarena.tencent.com/hok/doc/ .
Key facts. Cited by 28 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 23 of its 44 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Sep 2022.
Builds on
23 of 44 references.
References · 23
- 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 15,215
- 2013Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 3,274
- 2018Soft Actor-Critic Algorithms and Applicationscited by 1,240
- 2019Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,204
- 2019Dota 2 with Large Scale Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,103
- 2019RLBench: The Robot Learning Benchmark & Learning Environmentcited by 689
- 2019The StarCraft Multi-Agent Challengecited by 597
- 2020robosuite: A Modular Simulation Framework and Benchmark for Robot Learningcited by 511
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- 2019Google Research Football: A Novel Reinforcement Learning Environmentcited by 260
- 2019MineRL: A Large-Scale Dataset of Minecraft Demonstrationscited by 215
- 2021Open-Ended Learning Leads to Generally Capable Agentscited by 182
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- 2019Mastering Complex Control in MOBA Games with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 161
- 2019Distilling Policy Distillationcited by 84
- 2017Virtual to Real Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Drivingcited by 80
- 2020Towards Playing Full MOBA Games with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 78
- 2020Supervised Learning Achieves Human-Level Performance in MOBA Games: A Case Study of Honor of Kingscited by 18
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- 2021Boosting Offline Reinforcement Learning with Residual Generative Modelingcited by 7
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- 2019What Makes a Good Team? A Large-scale Study on the Effect of Team Composition in Honor of Kingscited by 2
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Citing papers per year: 2022: 1; 2023: 7; 2024: 10; 2025: 7; 2026: 3.
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- 2026UI-Voyager: A Self-Evolving GUI Agent Learning via Failed Experience25 Mar 2026
- 2025HLSMAC: A New StarCraft Multi-Agent Challenge for High-Level Strategic Decision-Making16 Sep 2025
- 2025What-If Analysis of Large Language Models: Explore the Game World Using Proactive Thinking5 Sep 2025
- 2025Joint-Local Grounded Action Transformation for Sim-to-Real Transfer in Multi-Agent Traffic Control21 Jul 2025
- 2025Mxplainer: Explain and Learn Insights by Imitating Mahjong Agents17 Jun 2025
- 2025Deep RL Needs Deep Behavior Analysis: Exploring Implicit Planning by Model-Free Agents in Open-Ended Environments8 Jun 2025
- 2025Model-Free Robust Average-Reward Reinforcement Learning with Sample Complexity Analysis18 May 2025
- 2025A Practical Introduction to Deep Reinforcement Learning13 May 2025
- 2024SMAC-Hard: Enabling Mixed Opponent Strategy Script and Self-play on SMAC23 Dec 2024
- 2024Instruction-Driven Game Engine: A Poker Case Study17 Oct 2024
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- 2024HistoGym: A Reinforcement Learning Environment for Histopathological Image Analysis16 Aug 2024
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- 2024Mini Honor of Kings: A Lightweight Environment for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning6 Jun 2024
- 2024Stimulate the Potential of Robots via Competition15 Mar 2024
- 2024A Survey on Game Playing Agents and Large Models: Methods, Applications, and Challenges15 Mar 2024
- 2024Offline Fictitious Self-Play for Competitive Games29 Feb 2024
- 2024Enhancing Human Experience in Human-Agent Collaboration: A Human-Centered Modeling Approach Based on Positive Human Gain28 Jan 2024
- 2023Probabilistic Offline Policy Ranking with Approximate Bayesian Computation17 Dec 2023
- 2023Prompt to Transfer: Sim-to-Real Transfer for Traffic Signal Control with Prompt Learning28 Aug 2023
- 2023Technical Challenges of Deploying Reinforcement Learning Agents for Game Testing in AAA Games19 Jul 2023
- 2023RL-ViGen: A Reinforcement Learning Benchmark for Visual Generalization15 Jul 2023
- 2023Comparing Reinforcement Learning and Human Learning using the Game of Hidden Rules30 Jun 2023
- 2023Tackling Cooperative Incompatibility for Zero-Shot Human-AI Coordination5 Jun 2023
- 2023Games for Artificial Intelligence Research: A Review and Perspectives26 Apr 2023
- 2022Revisiting Discrete Soft Actor-Critic21 Sep 2022
- 2024SMAC-Hard: Enabling Mixed Opponent Strategy Script and Self-play on SMACcited by 5
- 2025Deep RL Needs Deep Behavior Analysis: Exploring Implicit Planning by Model-Free Agents in Open-Ended Environmentscited by 4
- 2025Model-Free Robust Average-Reward Reinforcement Learning with Sample Complexity Analysiscited by 3
- 2025A Practical Introduction to Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
- 2026Augmenting Game AI with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
- 2026Augmenting Game AI with Deep Reinforcement Learning18 Jun 2026
- 2025Deep RL Needs Deep Behavior Analysis: Exploring Implicit Planning by Model-Free Agents in Open-Ended Environments8 Jun 2025
- 2025Model-Free Robust Average-Reward Reinforcement Learning with Sample Complexity Analysis18 May 2025
- 2025A Practical Introduction to Deep Reinforcement Learning13 May 2025
- 2024SMAC-Hard: Enabling Mixed Opponent Strategy Script and Self-play on SMAC23 Dec 2024
- 2023Prompt to Transfer: Sim-to-Real Transfer for Traffic Signal Control with Prompt Learningcited by 36
- 2023RL-ViGen: A Reinforcement Learning Benchmark for Visual Generalizationcited by 28
- 2024A Survey on Game Playing Agents and Large Models: Methods, Applications, and Challengescited by 22
- 2023Games for Artificial Intelligence Research: A Review and Perspectivescited by 14
- 2022Revisiting Discrete Soft Actor-Criticcited by 13
- 2023Tackling Cooperative Incompatibility for Zero-Shot Human-AI Coordinationcited by 12
- 2023Technical Challenges of Deploying Reinforcement Learning Agents for Game Testing in AAA Gamescited by 12
- 2024Metacognitive AI: Framework and the Case for a Neurosymbolic Approachcited by 9
- 2024Enhancing Human Experience in Human-Agent Collaboration: A Human-Centered Modeling Approach Based on Positive Human Gaincited by 5
- 2023Probabilistic Offline Policy Ranking with Approximate Bayesian Computationcited by 3
- 2024Instruction-Driven Game Engine: A Poker Case Studycited by 3
- 2023Comparing Reinforcement Learning and Human Learning using the Game of Hidden Rulescited by 2
12 most cited of 17 All 17 (JSON)
- 2025Joint-Local Grounded Action Transformation for Sim-to-Real Transfer in Multi-Agent Traffic Control21 Jul 2025
- 2025Mxplainer: Explain and Learn Insights by Imitating Mahjong Agents17 Jun 2025
- 2024Instruction-Driven Game Engine: A Poker Case Study17 Oct 2024
- 2024HistoGym: A Reinforcement Learning Environment for Histopathological Image Analysis16 Aug 2024
- 2024Metacognitive AI: Framework and the Case for a Neurosymbolic Approach17 Jun 2024
- 2024Mini Honor of Kings: A Lightweight Environment for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning6 Jun 2024
- 2024Stimulate the Potential of Robots via Competition15 Mar 2024
- 2024A Survey on Game Playing Agents and Large Models: Methods, Applications, and Challenges15 Mar 2024
- 2024Enhancing Human Experience in Human-Agent Collaboration: A Human-Centered Modeling Approach Based on Positive Human Gain28 Jan 2024
- 2023Probabilistic Offline Policy Ranking with Approximate Bayesian Computation17 Dec 2023
- 2023Prompt to Transfer: Sim-to-Real Transfer for Traffic Signal Control with Prompt Learning28 Aug 2023
- 2023Technical Challenges of Deploying Reinforcement Learning Agents for Game Testing in AAA Games19 Jul 2023
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