Kingdom Hearts fans made their joy known during D23’s Entertainment Showcase when a 90 second trailer popped up amid the parade of film and TV announcements, revealing some new details about the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 4 game. But the good news wasn’t limited to the big showcase. During the 25th Anniversary panel for Kingdom Hearts at D23 the game’s Director, Tetsuya Nomura, revealed the original trailer was actually 4 minutes long.
He then showed everyone the trailer, and the crowd went truly wild.
There’s a lot going on in this trailer, and it reveals quite a bit about the way Kingdom Hearts 4 is going to work. A promised, this longer trailer has all of the same pieces from the night before but with quite a bit more depth. Here are a few things I found, supported by commentary from the game’s creators.
- King Mickey as a playable character: While the good King has always been a part of Kingdom Hearts, he’s usually off trying to solve a different part of the puzzle on his own while his friends help Sora with the rest. This time around, you will be able to play as King Mickey while he tries to solve a series of puzzles within a magical book. This gameplay won’t be as combat focused as playing with Sora, opting instead for a series of origami-style puzzles to solve as the mystery unravels. It’s not immediately clear how much of the game as a whole will be played as Mickey.
- Maleficent will be a significant villain in this game: There’s never just one villain in a Kingdom Hearts game, and Maleficent has been a thorn in the side of Keyblade wielders from the beginning, but Tetsuya Nomura made it clear she will be a significant character in this game. Maybe she sees Sora’s appearance in Quadratum as a window to spread darkness to even more worlds?
- Quadratum will be one of the biggest regions of the game: While it’s been said in earlier trailers the real world-looking area we see Sora in is called Quadratum and is based on artists and developers roaming Tokyo for inspiration, it was revealed at D23 that Quadratum will be one of the biggest parts of the game to travel in. To help with this, Sora will have new movement abilities, in addition to the rail gliding and lamp post launches seen in previous games. The goal is for it to be big because the fights there will be against very big Heartless, as seen in the trailer.
- Toon Town heavily influenced the hub region for this game: Much like Traverse Town, Twilight Town and other hub-style areas from previous Kingdom Hearts games, this new title will have Disney Town. The area will be filled with bright, colorful activities based partly on the kid-focused Toon Town in Disneyland. Additionally, you can expect a minigame focused on sweet treats inspired by Disneyland, just like sea salt ice cream and other treats from previous games.
- Something that wound up on the cutting floor of a previous game will be in Kingdom Hearts 4: During the D23 panel, Tetsuya Nomura shared there was something big the team wanted to include in Kingdom Hearts 3 that wound up being cut because it wasn’t able to do well by the time the game needed to ship. Whatever that cut part of the game was, Nomura has made it a part of Kingdom Hearts 4. All we need now is any actual details about what this is.
- Kingdom Hearts 4 will ship in 2027: It was made very clear during this panel that Kingdom Hearts 4 will not experience any delays at this point that will cause this game to ship any later than 2027. There’s no commitment to when in 2027 just yet, and Kingdom Hearts 2 shipped on December 22, 2005 so it really could be any point next year.
Other than the above, the Kingdom Hearts team repeatedly shared this game will follow the same general format of its predecessors. Each world will be its own environmental challenges, include popular characters from across all Disney IP regardless of how old or new, encourage a diversity of gameplay styles and will be unapologetically Disney. All we need now is a way to preorder.
