The big surprise this Sunday was the announcement of Kingdom Hearts 4. Square Enix warned us a few months ago that an event would be organized in Japan to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series. Kingdom Heartswith an exhibition reserved for Japanese fans but with a few surprises in store (wink).
And if the beginning of the event mainly focused on the presentation of the mobile games of the saga, with in particular Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road and the announcement of Kingdom Hearts: Missing Linka 3D mobile game that will enter beta this year, the publisher had quite a surprise to reveal to the fans, that of the existence of Kingdom Hearts IV.
And since the saga is quite obscure for the uninitiated (and to tell the truth, even for the initiated), we will try to decipher the first trailer to understand what Tetsuya Nomura and his teams want to lead us to. This article will therefore address elements of the lore of Kingdom Heartsvery on the surface in order to be accessible to as many people as possible, but there will also be spoilers (mandatory to understand this fourth episode) concerning the hidden end of Kingdom Hearts III and its DLC Re:Mind.
A new arc, but the ghost of Versus XIII lurks
Let’s start by remembering that this fourth episode starts a new chapter for the series, that of the “Lost Master” (“The Lost Master” in English). After the arc of the Seeker of Darkness, which was told in all previous games with the saga of Xehanort, great antagonist of the series, it is now a whole new plot that will begin. Obviously, it will probably be necessary to have had knowledge of the events of the first trilogy (if we can call it a trilogy) to fully understand what is happening here.
What this trailer shows us is already Quadratum’s worlda unique universe created for Kingdom Hearts III, which is still very mysterious. In the third episode, we discovered that this world was a fictional universe in the world of Toy Storythat of a video game where a young man named Yozora was the hero, who looked deceptively like a fusion between Riku and Noctis from Final Fantasy XV/Versus XIII.
When we traveled through the world of Toy Story, by way of introduction, we discovered an ultra-worked cutscene for this video game, which was strongly reminiscent of Final Fantasy Versus XIII because of its dark and realistic universe. As a reminder, Final Fantasy Versus XIII was the first form of Final Fantasy XVwith a somewhat different Noctis and darker tone.
If one could first think that it was an innocent nod to Tetsuya Nomura’s aborted game project, it was in fact much more than that, since during the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts IIIwe discovered that Sora had landed in the world of Yozora (therefore Quadratum), with a cutscene that was once again full of references to Versus XIII.
We saw that Riku also landed in this world, presumably to find Sora, while what seemed to be the master of masters was also present, mimicking Kingdom Hearts on the moon of this world. The Master of Masters is a mysterious character, whose true motivations are unknown, but who seems to be pulling the strings of everything that has happened in the saga almost from the beginning.
With the Re:Mind DLCanother ending showed an epic fight between Yozora and Sorawith a bad ending that encased Sora in a crystal, with Yozora promising to save him, while the good ending simply showed Yozora waking up in a car, again referencing a trailer for Versus XIII.
In this first trailer of Kingdom Hearts IVwe discover Sora who wakes up again in this very realistic world, close to modern Tokyo.
In addition to the fact that we notice that he is finally wearing shoes that fit, we see that he directly meets Strelitziaa young Keyblade warrior who appeared in Kingdom Hearts: Union χ [Cross], whose reason for his presence in this world is unknown. She then tells him that he’s been asleep for seven days, so presumably the bad ending of the third episode DLC is taken into account here.
Known gameplay bases with some new features
As for the gameplay, what we see in the video will obviously not be the final rendering, especially since we have confirmation that this footage was running on Unreal Engine 4 while the final game will be on Unreal Engine 5but we mainly find the basis of Kingdom Hearts III, with the same interface, keyblade transformations, QTEs etc. The freedom of movement seems to be a little greater, with in particular the Keyblade chain which can now be used as a grappling hook.
All the action sequence that we see, especially with the fact that Sora climbs on a building, or that he crosses a corridor being completely broken, reminds once again of the trailers of Versus XIII (when he had just renamed himself to Final Fantasy XV), and this is far from being a coincidence.
The end of the sequence shows us two hooded people watching the fight between Sora and the Heartless, with the clothes of Organization XIII. The one who has his hands behind his back would obviously be the Master of masters, but as for the other, it is difficult to say. Xigbar/Luxu however, seems to be the most obvious candidate, although nothing is confirmed.
Fewer Disney animated films, more live action films?
In the trailer, Quadratum is described as an afterlife, at least for Sora and Strelitzia. Both technically “lost their lives”, the former exhausting his strength to bring Kairi back, while the latter disappeared in the events of Kingdom Hearts: Union χ [Cross].
Quadratum also seems to be the starting point to other worlds. And it is probably because this world is described as a world of life after death that we find donald and Dingo at the end of the trailer, in a dark cave, which is certainly the kingdom ofHades of the world ofHercules. Hades even appears via a blue flame behind the duo, before the flame turns red, asking the two heroes what they are doing there. If Donald and Goofy are looking for a way to bring back the dead, or a passage to other worlds, Hades does indeed seem like a logical choice to help them (if he agrees).
Now, there remains the question of whether this new episode will not take us into more realistic worlds like Quadratum. Many theorize that with the strong presence of Versus XIII here, one could be led to visit worlds of Final Fantasy rather than Disney’s (given that the series is based on a crossover between Disney and Final Fantasyalthough the characters of the Square Enix saga have been more and more discreet over the episodes).
Others rather think that we will stay at Disney, but more on the side of live-action films, like Marvel films or even Star Wars. And on this subject, we see quite a few people think that a clue on Star Wars was present in the trailer, in the passage of the forest, where you think you see an AT-AT foot on the ground.
And with a forest like this, easy to make the connection with the planet of Endor, even if everything remains at the stage of theory for the moment, especially since more live films does not mean the end of the worlds animated films. After all, movies Pirates of Caribbean are widely represented in the saga, so one does not preclude the other.
In short, for the moment we are sure of nothing and everything can change since this Kingdom Hearts IV probably won’t hang out for a long time, knowing Tetsuya Nomura. We don’t even know what platforms it’s planned on at the moment, and we imagine that Final Fantasy VII Remake Part II is more likely to arrive before this opus.
Anyway, it was a nice surprise for fans of the saga, who will be able to have fun with theories for a while yet.