Disney’s D23 event has seen the debut of a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4, confirming the first world it’ll be set in and narrowing down the release date.
The D23 (as in 1923, when the company was founded) event from Disney doesn’t often feature much in the way of video games news but it’s understandable why there’d be an exception made for Kingdom Hearts, the long-running crossover between Disney and Square Enix properties.
That’s especially true now, as the frequency of new releases and spin-offs has slowed considerably in the last decade, with the most recent mainline entry being Kingdom Hearts 3 in 2019. Kingdom Hearts 4 was first announced in 2022, but the first gameplay trailer wasn’t until this June at the summer Nintendo Direct.
That trailer took place in the world of Quadratum, which looks like modern day Earth, but the new trailer at D23 revealed the first of the Disney movie worlds, in the form of Pixar’s Coco. Apart from the amazing graphics, which you could easily mistake for the actual film, not a lot else of substance was revealed apart from a release window of… ‘late 2027’.
That’s sooner than a lot of fans feared, even if the trailer doesn’t show much other than Sora fighting in the Coco world, Mickey Mouse pondering in a library, and Goofy talking to Hades from Hercules.
Kingdom Hearts games typically have around a dozen different worlds, although, like Quadratum, not all of them are necessarily based on a Disney or Square Enix property.
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One of the very first teases for Kingdom Hearts 4 seemed to hint at a Star Wars world, with what looked like an AT-ST on the forest moon of Endor, but despite persistent rumours that’s never been confirmed. A Marvel world has also been rumoured but there’s been no firm evidence for that at all.
Although they seem unlikely inclusions on the face of it, Kingdom Hearts also already featured live action properties such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Tron. There’s also a Star Wars/Marvel crossover comic, and a rumoured Lego set, coming out soon, so Disney seems to have reached the point where it’ll use its IP in absolutely anything.
Also at the event was the annoucement of the previously rumoured Kingdom Hearts anime show, to be run on Disney Channel and Disney+. It’ll be made with the help of Square Enix and series creator Tetsuya Nomura but will be an original story and not an adaptation of any of the games.
More Kingdom Hearts information may emerge over the course of the weekend but so far there seems no sign of any Marvel or Star Wars video game news. That’s not unusual for D23, although given there’s no Star Wars Celebration event this week (they’re saving themselves for the 50th anniversary next year) there did seem a chance that Star Wars Jedi 3 could’ve been revealed.
If that isn’t just left to next year, the only predictable venue for its reveal left this year is The Game Awards in December. But given it’s the last part of the trilogy, it seems more likely it’ll be unveiled at a Disney/Lucasfilm event.
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