As part of Kingdom Hearts’ 20th anniversary celebration in Japan, Square Enix unveiled a small teaser of their newest instalment to their beloved series, Kingdom Hearts IV. The new trailer confirms the return of Sora, Donald Duck, and Goofy for a brand-new adventure named the Lost Master Arc.
The trailer for Kingdom Hearts IV begins as what appears to be a giant heartless starting to manifest while Sora wakes up inside an apartment in a modern environment; it is a brand-new world named Quadratum. Described by Square Enix as “a large, expansive city set in a gorgeous, realistic world” for players to explore with the well-known companions of Sora, Goofy and Donald Duck. The trailer also saw the appearance of a mysterious girl named Strelitzia that appears before Sora and introduces him to the world before he gets into a boss fight with the recently manifested heartless.
It was stated that the trailer for Kingdom Hearts IV was a demo made using Unreal Engine 4 giving an impressive look at the new game. But, it was also revealed that the final game will be made with the newly developed Unreal Engine 5. The new engine boasts the ability to create an enormous and realistic world to immerse the players in the experience, so we can definitely expect Kingdom Hearts IV to be delivered as a massively open world.
Hidden within the trailer, there was a jungle-themed world where fans pointed out an object that appeared to be the foot of an AT-ST walker from the Star Wars Franchise. It has been speculated within the community that the jungle-themed world could actually be Star Wars’ Endor.
Neither of Disney’s biggest franchises, Star Wars and Marvel, has been previously implemented into Kingdom Hearts nor has it been confirmed by either Square Enix or Disney. It’s probably safe to say that Star Wars could potentially make its first appearance in the new game as a new universe.
With the launch of the new trailer, it is likely that fans won’t have any of their suspicions confirmed for a while as the game had just been revealed yesterday. Square Enix also confirmed that Kingdom Hearts IV is in “early development” and it is worth noting that Kingdom Heart 3 took 13 years to be developed.
