I’m extremely late to the party, I know, but I’m making a real effort to have some work/life balance when it comes to managing Retcon and doing a whole bunch of other things outside of that, including my day job, so there you go. But I’m here now! And there was a ton of exciting news from this weekend’s D23 expo, including a bunch of Kingdom Hearts IV news and other series-related announcements. Let’s talk about it.
Kingdom Hearts IV Teams Up With Coco For a Late-2027 Release
I’ll believe it when I see it, but Square Enix has confirmed that Kingdom Hearts IV will be released in late-2027. I’ll never forget E3 2013, when the company first announced the existence of Kingdom Hearts III. All it took was one shot of Sora picking up a Keyblade on the Destiny Islands for the entire crowd to go wild, and we proceeded to wait another six years for launch.
Anyway, I actually do have more faith in Square Enix this time around. I love how they’ve handled development for the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy, even if there was still a multi-year gap between the announcement and the release of the first game. Still, these games have been released at a decent clip, and Square Enix in general has seemed much better about announcing and releasing games within reasonable timeframes. Long gone are the days of XIII, Versus XIII, FFXV, Kingdom Hearts III, Agito and wondering when the hell any of those games were gonna see the light of day.
But enough of that. We got a look at the brand new Coco world in Kingdom Hearts IV, which looks just as vibrant and colorful as you expect it to be. I’m actually a little surprised to see that Square Enix is still clinging on to that Disney association, as I was kinda under the impression that Kingdom Hearts IV would likely strike out and form a new identity of its own now that the Xehanort saga is over.
Full disclosure: I haven’t actually beaten Kingdom Hearts III, and I would like to do that someday, but everything I’ve heard about the ending gave me the sense that the series would start moving away from Disney.
But hey, Disney brings in the big bucks, right? I often think back to the first time I ever played Kingdom Hearts, and how blown away I was by all of the Disney worlds. I do think that the series and its audience have matured a lot since then, though, and while there certainly is still space for the Disney association, I wonder if the series would be better served by leaning into its own unique identity.
Kingdom Hearts Gets a Disney+ Animated Series
Not a lot of details about this one, but it’s what it says on the tin. Kingdom Hearts is getting a Disney+-exclusive anime series featuring a brand new story expanding the world of the series. Square Enix and Tetsuya Nomura will be involved.
Nice try Disney, but I’m still not renewing my subscription!
