Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) developed and published by Moonton, a subsidiary of ByteDance. Released in 2016, the game has become popular in Southeast Asia and was among the games chosen for the first medal event esports competition at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games in the Philippines.
In July 2018, Tencent (which also developed similar games, Arena of Valor) on behalf of Riot Games won a lawsuit in Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court against Moonton’s CEO Watson Xu Zhenhua (as he had previously worked in Tencent as one of Tencent’s senior employee), for violating a law regarding Non-Compete Agreements along with Mobile Legends‘ plagiarism of League of Legends, and was awarded a settlement of $2.9 million.
Gameplay
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game designed for mobile phones. The two opposing teams fight to reach and destroy the enemy’s base while defending their own base for control of a path, the three “lanes” known as “top”, “middle”, and “bottom”, which connects the bases. Weaker computer-controlled characters, called “minions”, spawn at team bases and follow the three lanes to the opposite team’s base, fighting enemies and turrets.
Characters
Mobile Legends initially had 10 heroes upon its release in 2016. It later grew to 70 by November 2018, and as of December 2020, 103 heroes are in the live server.
Moonton regularly collaborates with Southeast Asian countries to create new characters from their respective histories or folklore to further increase the game’s appeal, introducing characters such as Lapu Lapu (Philippines), Minsitthar (based on Kyansittha; Myanmar), Kadita (based on Nyai Roro Kidul; Indonesia), and Badang (Malaysia).
In November 2020, Moonton announced Filipino professional boxer Manny Pacquiao as the brand ambassador for Mobile Legends: Bang Bang in the Philippines. To commemorate the partnership, Moonton also launched a character based on Pacquiao in the game known as Paquito.
Related media
Garudayana
In June 2017, Moonton approached Is Yuniarto, an Indonesian comic book artist that best known for Garudayana, a Javanese action fantasy comic series from Indonesia. The Garudayana comic series was published by numerous comic publishers in Indonesia such as Koloni (Original imprint version), Curhat Anak Bangsa (Garudayana Saga), Webtoon (Digital comic), and CIAYO Comics (Web comic). On 11 August 2015, Is Yuniarto stated on his Facebook page that he has officially cooperated to release the comic which is now in its fifth saga with one of the most famous online comic publishers in Japan, Digital Catapult, in which Garudayana comic originally only available in indonesian language, now also available for English and Japanese language for audiences outside Indonesia.
The reason Moonton approached Is Yuniarto is to included Gatotkaca from Garudayana as a playable character in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang to promote the game, attracting local audiences as well as boosting the game popularity in Indonesia. Moonton also later included Kadita, an Indonesian goddess of the sea from Sundanese and Javanese beliefs as playable character in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang to further appeal Indonesian playerbase.
The King of Fighters
In March 2019, Moonton approached SNK for collaboration, introducing characters from The King of Fighters (KOF) as skins in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. The skins have unique KOF ability effects and voiceovers. The 1st KOF series skins released in the game were Iori Yagami for the hero Chou, Leona Heidern for the hero Karina, and Athena Asamiya for the hero Guinevere. The 2nd KOF series skins released were Kula Diamond for the hero Aurora, K’ for the hero Gusion, and Orochi Chris for the hero Dyrroth.
Animated television series
Legends of Dawn: The Sacred Stone is a 2021 animated television series that is directed by Ziaolong Zhang and was premiered on Tencent’s streaming services WeTV and Iflix on September 5, 2021 and will make its television premiere on TV9 in Malaysia, NET in Indonesia, and ABS-CBN Corporation’s Kapamilya Channel and A2Z (owned by ZOE Broadcasting Network) in the Philippines on September 19, 2021.
Esports
Awards and nominations
The game became highly popular in Southeast Asia, notably in Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, where it was the most-downloaded free mobile game app among iPhone users in 2017.
| Award | Date | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EXGCON Indonesia Gaming Awards | December 13, 2019 | Most Favorite Game Developer of the Year | Moonton | Nominated | |
| Most Favorite Game of the Year | Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | Won | |||
| Most Favorite Tournament of the Year | Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League (MPL) | Won |
Tournaments
Official tournaments
Official Mobile Legends tournaments have been held in the Southeast Asian region, including the annual Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Southeast Asian Competition (MSC) and having their own local leagues such as the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Professional League (MPL).
The first Mobile Legends: Bang Bang World Championship, dubbed as M1, was held in Axiata Arena in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 15 to 17 November 2019. The competition featured 16 teams across the world to battle it out for a prize pool of US$250,000.
Mobile Legends was among the first game titles to be included as a medal event for esports at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games.
Other tournaments
Philippines
- The Nationals, a franchised esports league in the Philippines, include Mobile Legends.
- LIGA2KONTRIBIDA, a street battle event, was held at SM City North EDSA and SM Mall of Asia with Nadine Lustre as a brand ambassador. It is the second season of MLBB LIGA in the Philippines introduced in 2018 and was continued due to its success. MLBB LIGA tournaments are offline events aimed for fans and non-professional players.
- A Mobile Legends: Bang Bang corporate league was added to Philippine Pro Gaming League, an esports event organized by Globe Telecom and MET Events.
- Celebrity streamers Alodia Gosiengfiao, Ako si Dogie, Le Josette, Moymoy Palaboy, MRVii Gaming, SolidMB, Yasumeow, Yakou, YuriGaming, and Z4pnu were given challenges designed by Moonton during live streams via Crazy Legends, an event in partnership with Facebook Gaming.
- Open Kitchen Kagitingan League, a Mobile Legends tournament with a prize pool of P100,000 was hosted in October 2019.
- Star Magic hosted a Mobile Legends event with 4 teams of celebrities including The Voice Kids winner Elha Nympha, Myrtle Sarrosa, and actor Zaijian Jaranilla and being captained by streamers and professional gamers including Rojean delos Reyes, Bianca Yao, Billy “Z4pnu” Alfonzo, and Lance “Mr. Vii” Vicencio.
- SM City Cebu hosted Cyberzone Game Fest 2019 with a Mobile Legends tournament.
Campaigns
515 Unite
515 Unite is an annual global campaign launched in integrating online and offline Mobile Legends events such as cosplay competitions and roadshows. The theme song for Mobile Legends 515 Unite 2019 event was “Bang Bang” sang by Shorelle. In May 2020, Moonton released “Party Legends” on YouTube, Spotify, and other streaming services.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 515 campaign for 2020 was limited to online events and competitions.
Crazy Legends: Charity Homestand
In April 2020, Moonton partnered with Save the Children Philippines to help children in need due to the 2020 Luzon enhanced community quarantine by dedicating an online streaming event called Crazy Legends: Charity Homestand. Twenty streamers participated, including Dogie, ChooxTV, Z4pnu, and Eric Tai.
Exclusivity Contract
In 2021, Moonton has allegedly disallowed MLBB esports organizations to create teams for League of Legends: Wild Rift and was criticized by the Team Secret CEO that the move “cannot be good from a healthy ecosystem or competitive integrity standpoint.” An unnamed source then later clarified that there is indeed an exclusivity contract but it is only optional and Moonton will give benefits to those who agree on the exclusivity. Some MLBB esports organizations still have teams for Wild Rift.
Development
After Moonton finished developing its first game called Magic Rush: Heroes, released in 2015, they proceeded with developing the company’s next project, a mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game later titled Mobile Legends. Mobile Legends was released by Moonton with the subtitle “5v5 MOBA” on 14 July 2016. The game is distributed by Elex Tech in the United States.
According to a scan of published apps on Google Play by Check Point Research last June 2019, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang was affected by CVE-2015-8271 (FFmpeg RTMP video streaming), a vulnerability that also affected popular apps like Facebook, Messenger, and SHAREit.
In early 2020, the game was heavily affected by third-party plugins and scripts that allowed map-hacks prompting Moonton to publicly publish punishments made through its social media accounts revealing the account ID of the banned players. Some accounts were also hacked due to exploits to Device ID that may have been due to the third-party scripts according to an official statement from Moonton. In response, patch 1.4.86 enabled two-factor authentication when logging in to a new device.
Update phase
MLBB 2.0
On July 18, 2019, Moonton announced MLBB 2.0 via its Epicon 2019 conference. MLBB 2.0 consists of an engine upgrade to a more recent version of the Unity game engine from version 4 to version 2017. Moonton also promised faster loading times and start-up speed of up to 60%. Other improvements of the update include reduced lag, improved character modelling, and the new in-game map Imperial Sanctuary. The update helped increase the cross-platform social media views earned by the game from 56 million in September 2019 to 76 million the next month making the game ranked fourth of all channels from all gaming brands in the US.
Project NEXT
Announced on June 5, 2020, Project NEXT is Moonton’s next project for Mobile Legends including revamps to older heroes’ 3D models, skill sets, stories, and voice lines. They also announced an improved targeting method called “Smart Targeting” improving accuracy.
Spin-off game
Mobile Legends: Adventure
Moonton released a spin-off game entitled Mobile Legends: Adventure, a role-playing strategy game, on 31 July 2019.
Lawsuit
After the game’s initial release, Riot Games suspected that the game was imitating the intellectual property of League of Legends and contacted Google to remove the game from Google Play. Moonton then removed the game before Google could take it down and eventually relaunched it with the altered name Mobile Legends: Bang Bang on 9 November 2016.
In July 2017, Riot Games filed a lawsuit against Moonton because of copyright infringement, citing similarities between Mobile Legends and League of Legends. Riot Games also complained that the name title of Mobile Legends sounds confusingly similar to League of Legends. The case was dismissed in the Central District Court of California in the United States on account of forum non conveniens. Tencent, Riot’s parent company, on behalf of Riot Games, then filed a new, separate lawsuit directly targeting Moonton’s CEO, Watson Xu Zhenhua (as he had previously worked in Tencent as one of Tencent’s senior employee) in Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court, for violating a law regarding Non-Compete Agreements, which ruled in Tencent’s favor in July 2018, awarding Tencent a settlement of $2.9 million (RMB19.4 million).