Kingdom Hearts III is an action RPG that combines the universes of both various Disney franchises and Final Fantasy. It sounds almost like it shouldn't work, but somehow, it just does, and the franchise has won itself millions of fans across the world.
Kingdom Hearts III was announced a while back at Sony's E3 2013 conference, and we've seen bits and pieces of information get drip fed ever since.
At the D23 Expo, Square Enix' legendary designer Tetsuya Nomura unveiled brand new footage, and discussed the possibility of Kingdom Hearts I HD and II HD hitting Xbox One.
The footage gives us a brief look as Sora, Donald Duck, and Goofy traverse Toy Story world, and meet faithful recreations of Toy Story staple characters. The footage is in Japanese, but it shouldn't be too long until an English version emerges to join it.
The trailer also re-emphasized the fact that Kingdom Hearts III will be hitting Xbox One in addition to PS4 and PC, with a vague "2018" launch window. There was some confusion about whether Kingdom Hearts III was PS4 exclusive during its initial announcement, as it was announced as part of Sony's press conference, but there's no longer any reason to doubt.
Speaking of Xbox support, Tetsuya Nomura caught up with IGN to discuss the possibility of Kingdom Hearts I and II HD hitting Xbox One, which is available now on PS4 as a HD collection. The PlayStation 2 classics are highly loved, but Nomura noted that he wasn't sure there's a demand for the games in the anglo-centric audiences enjoyed by Xbox.
"If we were to announce yet another non-Kingdom Hearts 3, people are going to be like, "Hey, what's going on?" So we will want to focus on releasing on the platforms that we have already announced. Do the Western audiences want Kingdom Hearts titles on the Microsoft or Xbox platforms? Japan might say "well, we don't want any more on Xbox."
It's a sad state of affairs that the tiny Xbox market share in Japan could cost fans access to yet another game. Lack of Xbox support in Japan has been cited as a reason for Platinum Games' Nier Automata not hitting the console, too.
Either way, Kingdom Hearts III looks like it's shaping up nicely. Are you interested in the franchise? Let us know in the comments.
