Square Enix took advantage of the twentieth anniversary of Kingom Hearts to officially announce the fourth numbered chapter of the series; an announcement that came as a surprise and was greeted with joy by fans of the saga born from the creative mind of Testuya Nomura. We don’t have an official launch window yet, but let’s take stock of what we know about Kingdom Hearts 4.
What do we know about Kingdom Hearts 4?
After what we saw in the presentation trailer of the project we can first of all say with certainty one thing: the saga of Xehanort has officially ended, to make room for a new story arc called The Lost Master. Are we therefore faced with a completely new journey for Sora and his companions? Not exactly.
The new cycle in fact starts directly from the ending of Kingdom Hearts 3, after Sora disappears and mysteriously finds himself in a world never seen before, very similar to reality as we know it. To partially clarify the issue, he thought about it Kingdom Hearts 3: Re Minda rhytm game that was thought to be a secondary spin off and which instead proved to be fundamental, in full Nomura style.
In fact, Sora ended up in the world of True Kingthe video game introduced in the chapter of Toy Story in Kingdom Hearts 3 and which has many points in common with Final Fantasy Versus 13, Nomura’s ultimate unrealized fantasy. The fourth chapter, therefore, will be set at least initially in the city of Quadratum, the place where Sora wakes up a week after the conclusion of KH3.
Here the protagonist meets again Strelitzia, a keeper of the Keyblade who appeared in Kingom Hearts Union X, who compares the new world to a sort of afterlife, which is credible, given that the girl should in theory be dead long after the events of the game she is the protagonist of. A realistic world and very similar to the real one, on the other hand the landscapes seen in the trailer are practically identical to those of Tokyo.
Gameplay and Theories
But the trailer allowed us to get a little taste of it too gameplay of this new title, which also in this case exudes the stylistic touch of Nomura, with aerial combat choreography and collapsing buildings that are used as surfboards. It is not difficult to see a common thread with all of the designer’s previous projects.
The most obvious novelty of all certainly concerns the presence of the grappling hookwhich Sora can use to make his way between ledges and ruins to project himself into elevated positions, but more generally the combat system appears even more dynamic and action-oriented than in the past, which is not necessarily a bad thing, if put in practice with insight.
It is not clear at the moment how the collaboration with Disney in this fourth chapter, since on the one hand we have the confirmation that they will still be there Donald and Goofy and probably Hades, judging by the flames at the end of the trailer, but we don’t know if we’ll be visiting the various Disney worlds this time too.
Many theorize that this time we will see more “mature” universes than in the past. For example, at some point in the trailer we see a forest, which some fans have theorized could be the Moon of Endor. Star Warsa possibility not to be ruled out absolutely, just as the possibility of having to do with the universe should not be ruled out Marvel.
In short, the potential is there and it is concrete. All that remains is to wait for new trailers to receive confirmations or denials about it.