King played Geoff Kime in the first round of the 2012 World Championship and outplayed his opponent, winning 3–0 without dropping a leg. However, he was knocked out in the second round for the third successive year as he was beaten 1–4 by Michael van Gerwen. At the UK Open King beat his old BDO rival Ted Hankey and Gareth Cousins, before losing 7–9 to van Gerwen in the last 32. Due to dropping out of the top 16 in the PDC rankings, King was due to play seed Phil Taylor in the first round of the 2012 World Matchplay. Despite a strong performance where he hit eight maximums to Taylor's one, King crucially missed three darts to lead the match 9–8 and instead lost 8–10.