Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura and Tai Yasue have revealed a few key details about Kingdom Hearts IV during an interview with with Famitsu, including the Coco setting, which Nomura-san said was chosen during the early stages of development due to its life and death themes.
According to Yasue-san, the setting is much larger and than previous cities in the Kingdom Hearts series, and sports more verticality in terms of its overall structure. As such, players will be able to navigate the location using numerous traversal mechanics, with routes taking Sora upward and around the environment available. Meanwhile, Yause hinted that other mechanics tied to the Coco location are being kept under wraps, after the D23 footage showcased guitar-based elements integrated into the game’s combat.
Elsewhere, Yasue confirmed that English voice recording is about 60-70% complete, while Nomura stated that the Japanese voice recording has already wrapped. Furthermore, the script for Kingdom Hearts IV is almost twice as big as that of Kingdom Hearts III, said Nomura, resulting in a demanding recording schedule.
Despite this, the pair assured fans that Kingdom Hearts IV will meet it slate 2027 launch window, with development progressing unusually smoothly, according to Yause.
Kingdom Hearts IV is currently in development for PS5, PC, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S and will launch late next year.
[Source – Famitsu via NoisyPixel]