Kingdom Hearts IV: Interview hints at a connection with other game

ByPatrick Souza Hours

Last Updated on: 26th June 2022, 05:00 am

A new interview with Kingdom Hearts IV director Tetsuya Nomura by GameInformer hints at a deeper connection with another upcoming game for the series. The next main series game is currently in development and will be focused on a new saga for the series, which continues to keep on going after III.

The aforementioned game is Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link, the upcoming mobile title for Android and iOS that seems to be remotely based on the other mobile game Kingdom Hearts Union ?. From the announcement trailer, we can see that it’s more than simply a modern version of the previous title.

Missing Link connection with Kingdom Hearts IV

Nomura didn’t drop any big information for the fourth installment itself but announced that Missing-Link will have some interesting content for the main story.

“The easiest way to get more new information and hints about Kingdom Hearts IV would be first to play Missing-Link. There will also be some more mysteries, not related to Kingdom Hearts IV specifically, but just throughout the series in it. Also, some figures that appear in Missing-Link are tied to Kingdom Hearts IV. That’s all I can really say now.”

As he also stated, the masked figures from the end of KH III will be central to the plot. Players from Union recognize them as the leaders of the Unions, and they may be again involved in Missing-Link. A closed beta for the game is planned to be released within this year.

Final Fantasy characters’ presence

When questioned about (the lack of) Final Fantasy characters in the last title, Nomura affirmed that Kingdom Hearts is not exactly “the collaboration of Disney and Final Fantasy characters”. The game has evolved to become more than simply a mixup of the two, and they now have many original characters to work with.

But still, he doesn’t discard the possibility of bringing some guests from Square’s other famous franchise once again:


“That’s something we definitely are thinking about. But just with the sheer number of original characters that we have now, it’s hard to say what the exact balance is going to be and how it will play out in Kingdom Hearts IV. We can’t really give you a firm reply on this just yet.”

kingdom hearts iv connection ff
Credit: Square-Enix

READ MORE: Kingdom Hearts IV is officially revealed

And of course, Disney

But on the other half of the equation, Nomura was more specific, going as far as saying that while there will be some Disney worlds in the game, it will feel “slightly different” from previous Kingdom Hearts titles. We may see less of them in IV, but they will still be there.

“As far as the graphic qualities… since with each new title, the specs have been really increasing and there’s so much more we can do in terms of graphics, it kind of limits the number of worlds that we can create in a sense.”

Kingdom Hearts IV doesn’t have an official release date, so it may take a while until we know exactly what kind of connection Missing-Link will have with it. 

But during the announcement, it was guaranteed that it wouldn’t take as long as it took for III to come out, so we may expect the game to be released between 2023 and 2025.