Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced over the weekend during the Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary celebrations. However, it will be quite a while before we hear anything more about the game. Kingdom Hearts creator Tetsuya Nomura has said that more information, like release date, characters, worlds, and the story will “take some time” before it is revealed.
Why was Kingdom Hearts 4 announced so early?
Nomura says Kingdom Hearts 4 was revealed so early in development because they wanted to avoid it being leaked. Unfortunately, they were a bit late for that one seeing as KH4 was one of the games revealed during the GeForce Now internal database leak back in September. According to comments collected by Twitter users @toto_cocoron0te and @aibo_ac7, translated by RPG Site, Nomura has said that it will “take some time” before we see Kingdom Hearts IV again and it certainly won’t be appearing during any of the shows that will replace E3 this summer.
The few details we have seen have left fans scouring the reveal trailer for any clues to the upcoming game. Some believe they’ve even managed to spot a nod towards the Star Wars franchise. A few brief seconds showing a forest reminiscent of Northern California’s Redwood National Park has Star Wars News Net convinced this is the Forest Moon of Endor, especially as they think they can see the back of an AT-ST foot there too. Nomura also promised the trailer’s narrator is not a new character and is one players have met earlier in the franchise.
Interestingly, when trying to come up with the concept for the next game in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, Nomura came up with two ideas. The first was KH4. The second was a game based on the world of Verum Rex introduced in Kingdom Hearts 3. Ultimately the latter was scrapped because Nomura realized it would be too much work to create two major console games at the same time. Also, Kingdom Hearts 4 would be better placed to explain the fate of Sora after the events of KH3. The game is set in Quadratum, the world to which Sora is transported during KH3, and is the beginning of a new “Lost Master Arc” storyline.
Finally, Kingdom Hearts 4 will be built using Unreal Engine 5 according to Famitsu. While the trailer showed footage of the game created in Unreal Engine 4, the newer engine will mean “the quality of lighting and detail will be several levels higher.”
In other news, the reveal of Kingdom Hearts 4 has made the possibility of a Final Fantasy 9 remake more realistic seeing as it’s the only leaked game from Square Enix mentioned in the GeForce Now internal database that is yet to be announced. Elsewhere, it turns out the Playstation Plus free game deal for Oddworld: Soulstorm was devastating to the studio.
