Ye Xiu is the best Glory player in the nation. Despite that, he is kicked off of his professional team and forced into an early retirement due to his unwillingness to yield to corporate backers. Having to pick up the pieces of his life, he finds an internet cafe and is unable to think of anything besides picking Glory back up again. Quanzhi Gaoshou, or The King’s Avatar, is a show about a man seeking purpose in what he’s dedicated his life to so far and learning to love what he does again.

Despite this initial premise, The King’s Avatar is not really about professional gaming but more so uses that as set dressing to the many characters that populate its world. The reason to watch The King’s Avatar is not to see commentary on the sphere of professional gaming but is to witness a guy and his friends having fun being really, annoyingly good at a video game. That’s not to say that there’s no politics in the show at all. This season of Quanzhi Gaoshou focuses around Ye Xiu forming alliances, friendships, and enemies in the new 10th server of Glory. Xiu makes a deliberate choice to surround himself with people who simply enjoy playing the game rather than people who get caught up in the bureaucracy of running a guild or people who simply seek fame. Don’t mistake that for Xiu not seeking glory (haha) himself. He and his band of ragtag newbies singlehandedly break most of the dungeon time records by themselves just to show off, which is what earns them the ire and admiration of everyone in the server.

If it isn’t obvious from what I’ve said so far, The King’s Avatar is a show about people and about how interpersonal relationships play out in large multiplayer games. It is a show about that, but it’s also a show about breaking from rigid hierarchies and self expression through character creation and customization. The thing that gives Ye Xiu his power, and his joy, in this game is his decade of experience, yes, but more importantly, his decision to remain as an unspecialized class. By not being tied down to any specific profession, Xiu can choose the aspects of any profession and integrate them into his playstyle. This is highlighted most clearly in his weapon of choice, the Thousand Chance Umbrella, which can morph into any weapon of his choosing whenever it’s most convenient. He presents a unique challenge to anyone who is looking to usurp him and beat him in PVP because he goes against the meta of the game and creates something truly unique. It’s the ultimate form of in-game self expression, almost as if Xiu is Glory itself.

Quanzhi Gaoshou has a lot to say under its hood, and it is surprisingly mature, especially compared to the other titles that lie in the genre of “OP badass is good at a game.” Ye Xiu has a real, beating heart to his character, as does every other character in the show, but it would take far too long to discuss each one of them. You will just have to experience it for yourself. But even with the complexity beneath the surface, The King’s Avatar is just plain fun to watch. The animation is consistently nice (even if there is gratuitous reuse of it in certain scenes) and the compositing of the CGI is almost always amazingly done. I say almost because the scenes where CGI is used in the cafe can be very off-putting and immersion-breaking, but inside the game, it’s lovely.

I watched The King’s Avatar during my holiday break from school this year (so yes, in the middle of Covid times), and the warm atmosphere of the show helped get me through this month. The mood really conveys that sense of staying up all night playing video games with your friends, and it was like a blanket and a cup of warm milk to me. Quanzhi Gaoshou is a more-than-competent character study and look at MMOs, and if anything I’ve said in this review piques your interest, then I would check it out, especially if you play or have ever played MMOs.