Kingdom Hearts Needs to Grow Up

Kingdom Hearts IV was announced over two years ago, and its absence from any recent showcases, as well as what looks like a lull in Square Enix’s release calendar, means that an update is quite possibly right around the corner. This leaves plenty of room for speculation about what the next entry in the 22 year-old series might look like.

Tale As Bold As Time

As the story goes, the original Kingdom Hearts was conceived as an idea in an elevator ride between execs at Disney and at Square, and they had a bold ambition to seamlessly blend classic Disney characters, worlds and stories with elements from the Final Fantasy series, into a brand new and unique experience.

It was an unlikely collaboration, and one that could have gone dreadfully wrong, but the developers managed to find the sweet spot. Its popularity and success at the time cannot be overstated. It sits at 85 on Metacritic, and managed to sell roughly 4 million units worldwide within its first year – bear in mind, this was a PS2-exclusive, back in the day when games released at different points in the year across different territories.

Compare that to what Square has pushed recently in juggernauts like Final Fantasy XVI, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, both of which are thought to have sold around 3 million copies or so in their first year – and you can start to get a sense of just how big Kingdom Hearts was at its peak. The latest figures suggest that the entire Kingdom Hearts series has sold over 36 million units.

Since the original title, the Kingdom Hearts series has grown and fleshed out its story over several sequels, prequels and spin-offs, as well as “Final Mix” definitive re-releases of some titles to provide new content for different parts of the world – well before DLC and patches were commonplace. In the case of some titles, there were even full remakes – a relatively novel concept at the time, if you can believe it.

The Heart of the Problem

While long-term fans, myself included, have slurped up every morsel of the wider story being drip-fed across the decades, the release strategy for subsequent titles was, frankly, bizarre.

While Kingdom Hearts I and II were on PlayStation 2, each spin-off initially released exclusively on a different platform. For example, Chain of Memories released as an inter-quel, bridging the gap between Kingdom Hearts I and II, but it was originally only for the Gameboy Advance.

The next spin-off, Birth by Sleep, was a prequel set 10 years before the events of the first game, and released exclusively on the PlayStation Portable. This pattern continued for mobile, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo 3DS.

Coupled with what many believed to be an increasingly convoluted storyline, some felt that Kingdom Hearts had started to become inaccessible to all but the most determined of fans.

There are plenty of others who break down elements of the story more thoroughly than I plan to here, but the villains and heroes alike shared many names, pseudonyms and appearances that could be reasonably hard to follow.

We are introduced to “Ansem” as the main antagonist, who later turns out to be called Xehanort pretending to be a man called Ansem – but it wasn’t actually Xehanort, it was his ‘Heartless’.

And then you also fight Xehanort’s ‘Nobody’, called Xemnas, which is an anagram of Ansem with an X in it, formed when he called himself Ansem and split into a Heartless and Nobody. They look identical, by the way.

The real Ansem is actually in disguise as a character called DiZ, while Sora’s friend Riku manifests physically as Xehanort’s Heartless when he uses the powers of darkness, and introduces himself as Ansem to DiZ (who is the real Ansem, remember).

Riku manifesting the power of darkness is not to be confused with a cloned ‘Riku Replica’ or ‘Dark Riku, though.

Xehanort is also the name of a much older man in the prequel, who actually possesses a character called Terra, changing his appearance into the younger Xehanort we met in the first game. But he’s not to be confused with a much younger Xehanort, helpfully referred to as Young Xehanort.

And if you manage to stick around until the end of Kingdom Hearts III, you’ll meet all of these versions of the same man at the same time.

Clear as mud, right? It makes perfect sense to me, but I’ll grant you that it isn’t the clearest story ever told. And that doesn’t even, really, scratch the surface.

Square Enix did catch on to this problem, eventually, and has since worked hard to make the entire series available in grouped packages, and even converted some of the…less enjoyable games into amalgams of FMVs and story summaries.

As of June 2024, the entire Kingdom Hearts series is available on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and on PC in both the Epic Games store and Steam, so it’s never been easier to jump into the whole series.

Back to the Future of the Series

Kingdom Hearts III released in 2019 and served as a finale the so-called “Xehanort Saga” – a term that hadn’t been used prior to the marketing of KH3, in a similar way to how Disney started to coin the “Skywalker Saga” or “Infinity Saga” to help fans mentally distinguish between a batch of projects in their Star Wars and Marvel properties.

In each of these cases, the ending of the saga has presented opportunities for growth, narrative shifts, or even soft reboots, without dismissing the events that have already come to pass in an expanding Universe.

Whether each brand thrives or loses its way in this sort of marketing ploy is perhaps a debate for another time, but it’s easy to see the attraction of employing this kind of strategy for long-running franchises.

In the case of Kingdom Hearts, its large and potentially complex narrative was difficult to follow in real-time due to the bizarre exclusivity patterns for every spin-off, and there are so many titles for newcomers to consider tackling even if they do want to try – so, wrapping up the Xehanort Saga certainly presents an opportunity for the series to step back and consider a new direction, and potentially providing a platform for newer players to join the series.

Director Tetsuya Nomura has previously stated that Kingdom Hearts is always going to be Sora’s story, so we can still expect Sora to be the central protagonist, no matter the new direction.

At the end of Kingdom Hearts III and the subsequent rhythm game sequel, Melody of Memory, Sora found himself transported to an entirely new world, separated from all of his companions. Travelling between worlds is a fundamental staple in Kingdom Hearts, but the dialogue strongly suggests this new world is somehow different. It remains to be seen what this will actually mean for Sora, but the suggestion is that this feels more like a new universe or timeline, as opposed to a new location they hadn’t travelled to in the Gummi Ship yet.

Being cut off from Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy Goof, while being transported to a city akin to one in our real world, seems like a conscious decision to begin a soft reboot, or at least a reframing, of Sora’s journey going forward.

Sora’s new location is visually and artistically different from the typically colourful classic Disney worlds we’ve grown used to, like Agrabah from Aladdin, or the Pride Lands from The Lion King. Sora is now in a world called Quadratum, with clear influences from a modern day Shibuya.

Although some seeds were sown towards the end of the Xehanort Saga to give reason for another sequel, we really have no idea where the story might go from here.

With that said, I come to the crux of this discussion, where I want to argue that it is time for Kingdom Hearts to grow up a bit, and there has never been a better time for it to do so.

When Kingdom Hearts initially released, in 2002, games were still something mainly aimed at young people, and so was Disney. Before Disney acquired many other brands, by 2002, most of their films were cartoon animations – and although the behemoth has mass appeal these days, with plenty of adults continuing to enjoy what Disney puts out, the core market was always children.

All of that is to say that, when it was first released, Kingdom Hearts was aimed at children and teenagers.

Cut to Kingdom Hearts 4 coming out in the next few years, it’s not hard to imagine that the same target demographic might find it hard to jump into a series that might be a decade older than they are, at least.

Core KH fans like me are now in our 30s or 40s. Something that hooked me into a game when I was 11 years old is not always what I am looking for at this point in my life. As much as the original games will always bring me joy, and I will happily replay most of them, I think I have had my fill of helping guide Winnie the Pooh’s friends back together, singing songs from The Little Mermaid, and overcoming darkness with the Power of Friendship and classic Disney Princesses.

High or Low? It’s off to Stark Towers We Go!

Since KH was originally released, Disney has acquired some major additional properties – chief among them being Star Wars, and Marvel. I will leave others to decide whether that has been a net good but, in the context of Kingdom Hearts, Disney’s spending spree has provided a lot of new toys for Square Enix to play with.

Disney has no shortage of films and titles to draw from but, over 22 years, we have inevitably explored the most popular already, and the vast well has started to run dry. There are some notable films yet to feature in KH, but not many are likely to be candidate worlds for Sora to explore.

Disney has gradually moved away from having iconic villains in their films, and KH has always fundamentally been about heroes and villains, right and wrong, light and darkness. I have every faith that Tetsuya Nomura would find a way to make some of the newer titles fun in the same spirit as previous games. I’m thinking of Sora visiting the world of Inside Out and having to help Riley overcome darker emotions, for example.

I do think that well might run dry fairly quickly, though, and it could be hard for Square to make an exciting adventure that moves the story forward in an Encanto world, or for Sora to have much to do if he met Luca or Moana.

On the other hand, what happens if Sora lands in a Marvel version of New York? Spider-Man swings in and teases him for his staple clown shoes. Charles Xavier could be keen to help Sora control and unlock his true potential. Deadpool could address how convoluted the history of the series has been. Nick Fury might try to recruit him after initially thinking he was a threat from the multiverse. Tony Stark might lend Sora a Hulkbuster as a Summon. This is a well that can flow for another two decades’ worth of games, easily.

@OneKingdomPlanet [DeviantArt]

And that’s just Marvel. Some sleuths already think Star Wars worlds have been teased, and if Sora doesn’t end up in a Keyblade fight with someone wielding a Lightsaber in the very near future, someone really isn’t doing their job properly.

There is nothing inherently ‘more mature’ about Marvel compared to animated Disney classics, but Marvel and Star Wars worlds involve people who have the potential for more layers to their character than the typical Disney Princesses and Heroes in whose worlds we have shared for the last few decades.

Disney still presents as a family-friendly company, but it is obvious they have tried to expand their appeal to a wider market, and some of their shows and films have explicitly tried to take on gritter, darker tones and appeal to more adult audiences.

For Kingdom Hearts, this is perfect. Kingdom Hearts IV is a chance for the series to bring in brand new players, or even players who jumped off over the years. There are many new properties and decades of beloved stories to retell and reimagine, all of which can be distanced somewhat from the cartoonish animations and stories adults might find off-putting.

Another notably absent set of worlds so far has been, oddly, any Final Fantasy-based worlds. Some of the most popular characters from VII, VIII, IX and X have featured already, and were woven into some of the original worlds we visited, but there are plenty of games in the FF series with some iconic locations yet to be explored.

We could easily visit Valisthea and have Sora team up with Clive – as the latest FF to take on a more mature theme, this could pair well with a new approach to depicting Sora’s story. I am already envisioning the Keyblade transforming in a way that matches Clive’s Eikonic abilities.

This is also a chance for Sora to grow up some more as a character. In our 22 years, Sora has only aged about two or three years in the games, and firmly remains a teenager – but he has seen his fair share of action, and tragedy.

Up until now, Sora has been a pure being – he is uncomplicated; he is happy, heroic, and just. Those around him have struggled more with their roles, and fighting dark urges, but never Sora. It has been key to the overall story for him to be pure. He is not perfect – he can still be childish, and has had his moments of weakness – but he has not changed much as a person over the years.

This is an opportunity for Sora to grow, evolve, and face new challenges. He’s alone now, without his friends and strongest bonds. His place in this new world is unclear, and currently has no definite purpose or villain to fight.

As adults, if we are to be reunited with Sora in a new story, I think we deserve to have a more well-rounded Sora. I don’t need to hear him drop an f-bomb, or be pushed to the brink of devastation, but I do need to see less child-like innocence and purity, and a broader representation of complex humans.

The Bright Sky Prince

While Kingdom Hearts has always heavily featured Disney properties as the base for its worlds, it isn’t entirely made up of cameos.

There has been an increasingly large ‘original’ element to each of the games, with many characters made purely for the series.

Kingdom Hearts III boldly introduced a game-within-a-game concept, where Sora was sucked into a video game called Verum Rex while he was hanging out with Woody & Buzz from Toy Story.

Fans of the wider Final Fantasy series quickly saw some extremely blatant parallels between Verum Rex, and Tetsuya Nomura’s ill-fated and cancelled take on Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which was scrapped and eventually reworked into Final Fantasy XV under a new Director.

Since then, many have wondered whether Nomura plans to do something with many of his abandoned ideas and incorporate them into Kingdom Hearts.

As if speaking directly to those of us who want that to happen, the Kingdom Hearts III DLC featured a new secret boss fight with a character from Verum Rex whose subsequent scenes mirrored those from FF Versus XIII’s trailers, signalling that Nomura clearly intends to reboot his original vision into KH.

While FF is a beast that is always changing and feels like it has lots of demands from senior executives at Square, Nomura is essentially the creator and mastermind of KH, and it’s easy to see that he would have the freedom and trust to play with his artistic vision rather than a new FF title.

FF Versus XIII, Quadratum and Verum Rex also to share the same darker colouring and more sombre orchestration we’ve seen from Yoko Shimomura’s absolutely brilliant scores. If this is any indication of where KH intends to go in the future, this could be a great sign.

Having said that, the post-credits and secret endings of all of the big KH games have had plenty of enigmatic and darker art styles hinting at the next title – and while those sequences do become key scenes in the next game, the game has always felt slightly lighter in tone.

With that pattern in mind, KH4 could still feel very similar to what has come before – but I argue that it shouldn’t.

Final Mix of Thoughts

In the end, Kingdom Hearts IV will be what it will be, and I have every faith that Nomura and his team will deliver another unforgettable experience.

But this can and should be a major turning point for the story to grow into something new, and more mature. Square and Disney have a difficult challenge ahead of them in trying to bring new fans to a long-standing series without alienating the people who have been there since the beginning.

But when those people have been here for over twenty years, it will be key to consider how our interests and perspectives have changed.

What are your thoughts on where Kingdom Hearts should go from here? Do you agree, or have a different take? Let me know in the comments below.

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