Will Kingdom Hearts 4 mark the great return of Final Fantasy characters to the franchise? Will Lightning and Noctis finally make an appearance? The game director responds.
Announced last April with a nice trailer, Kingdom Hearts 4 continues to reveal little by little through the statements of its director. Tetsuya Nomura devoted an interview to our colleagues from Game Informer offering some information on the game and its development. The thinking head of the franchise will however make some disappointed.
The return of Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts 4?
In this interview, Nomura made things clear. Gone are the days when KH was the crossover of Final Fantasy and Disney. Fans who were hoping to see Noctis and Lightning arrive in Kingdom Hearts 4 are going to be frustrated. The director indeed recalls that the franchise has a lot of original characters and there will probably be no more characters from Final Fantasy. All hope is not lost however.
I know some were worried about this and they wanted to see more Final Fantasy characters. We’re seriously considering it, but with the large number of original characters we currently have, it’s hard to say what the exact balance will be and how it will be implemented in KH4. We can’t really give you a firm answer on that just yet.
– Tetsuya Nomura
More realistic Disney worlds
For the rest, Nomura reassured fans of the presence of Disney Worlds. It goes without saying, but they will be there in Kingdom Hearts 4 with a more realistic approach pushed by the transition to Unreal Engine 5. One of these universes would have already been revealed in the trailer and it would act from Star Wars. The city of Quadratum preview will actually serve as a central HUB between visiting Disney Worlds.
Kingdom Hearts 4 will indeed focus on the disappearance of Sora. There is therefore little chance of seeing some original characters loved by fans again, such as Aqua, Roxas, Axel or Xion. Again, at this stage of development, Nomura isn’t closing the door on including them and expanding on their stories.