That company that makes the games about the plumber man, elf boy, and half-donkey half-gorilla held one of its "Directs" today, and lo and behold was the surprise showcase of a game that's been MIA for a surprisingly long time: Kingdom Hearts 4. The sequel was originally announced for the series' 20th anniversary in 2022, but has been noticeably absent for the past four years.
And what did it tell us? Well, truthfully, not all that much, unless you're a person like me who cannot be normal about this series and will be thinking about the implications of what was shown for months. For everyone else, there was a taste of the now even flashier combat, showing loveable, slightly less big-footed protag Sora zipping about on some magical chains as he fights maybe-Heartless big and small in not-Shibuya Shibuya. The young version of the original games' baddie Xehanort also made an appearance with a limp looking umbrella.
Notably, in a press release Square Enix do note that "Sora will once again journey to various worlds," an obviously vague point, but one that's been a bit of a question given how we've only seen this alternate Shibuya so far. The big thing here for us lot is that despite showing up in that Nintendo Direct, it is confirmed for PC now. More than that, it's also been confirmed to be fully multiplatform at launch (whenever that may be, Square did not deign to share this information just yet). Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, freshly announced at Geoff Fest, is taking a similar approach, a sign that Square truly are putting their multiplatform days behind them for the most part.
I imagine it'll be a while yet until Kingdom Hearts 4 actually gets into anyone's hands. Last year, Square cancelled the mobile spinoff Missing Link which would have bridged the gap between the previous games and the upcoming "fourth" game. Considering how much story was packed into the previous mobile game Union X, I can only imagine that the ever mysterious Tetsuya Nomura and co have had to figure out how to cram what would have been in Missing Link into Kingdom Hearts 4. It's probably safe to presume that this is part of what's taking it so long. I was in my mid-twenties when it got announced! Best move on from that before I have a crisis in the blog.