The co-director on Kingdom Hearts III has confirmed that the upcoming Disney-RPG sequel won’t be visiting locations from the Final Fantasy series.
While the popular series has visited numerous Disney worlds in the past, including the likes of The Little Mermaid, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Tron among others, it seems that Square Enix isn’t keen on throwing a few recognisable locations of its own into the mix.
"We’re not adding any Final Fantasy worlds,” said Tai Yasue. “A lot of the original [to Kingdom Hearts] worlds [Hollow Bastion, Traverse Town, e.t.c.] had Final Fantasy characters in them. At this moment, we are not really coming up with any plans for that, we’re making original worlds and Disney worlds."
“The best thing would be to have Disney Worlds every recognize and are famous, but that are also distinct and unique," added Yasue-san added. "We want the difference and variety, we don’t’ want a lot of the same thing."
Kingdom Hearts III not hitting PS4 for a while, but at least there’s Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8
Kingdom Hearts III is currently in development for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, though a release date has yet to be announced. The game was conspicuous by its absence at E3 2016 last week, although more info is expected to be released this winter.
From what we know of the sequel so far, this latest entry in the popular series won’t include Quick-Time Events, though will feature elements of Big Hero 6 and may feature a third playable character.
While the game is still some way off, Square Enix is plugging the gap by releasing the PS4-exclusive Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8, offering an updated version of Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance and other prologue content.