Kingdom Hearts 4 is one of the most anticipated video games of the moment. This new installment in the exciting franchise that mixes Disney with Square Enix was announced over a year ago, and we still don’t know much about it. Naturally, many concerns were raised about this one in the year 2023. Unlike when Kingdom Hearts started in the early 2000s, Disney is now a multi-billion dollar mega-company that has the rights to numerous popular intellectual properties, such as Marvel or Star Wars, and they can partner with any video game development company Are they eager to continue funding this strange RPG series from Square Enix? Well, a recent interview confirmed that yes, they are.
Disney confident Kingdom Hearts 4 will be a success
This information comes from an interview that the Axios Gaming site had with Sean Shoptaw, the director of Disney’s video game branch. The mouse company owns the licenses of numerous franchises, and they have contracted a number of different studios to develop video games based on them. Like Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Arkane Lyon’s Blade, Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws and many more. At one point, the Axios Gaming interviewer asked Sean about the acclaimed crossover franchise with Square Enix, due to the fact that Kingdom Hearts 4 is coming out in the near future. And his answer was a surprise.
“This has been an incredibly successful partnership. There’s no other way to look at it,” said Disney Gaming’s Sean Shoptaw, to which he then added, “We’re super excited for the next video game.” This makes sense, as, the Kingdom Hearts franchise began in 2001 and, since then, each new installment has been guaranteed hit after guaranteed hit. This even led to Disney approving the inclusion of Sora as a playable character in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, something long thought impossible. While the series has had its ups and downs, the first trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4 looked very promising. And if Disney trusts Square Enix, then there’s nothing for us to worry about.
Fans of the franchise can rest easy thanks to these statements. Many were afraid that Disney was losing interest in Kingdom Hearts and that they would end their partnership with Square Enix at some point. Besides that, it’s not very common to see the mouse company talking about this franchise. Despite having sold millions of units over more than 20 years, it is still considered “niche” among fans of Disney products. But Sean Shoptaw’s words assure us that Kingdom Hearts 4 will be a great game, and that there are no plans to end this franchise in the near future.
Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced in April 2022 with an amazing trailer, but we haven’t received any new information since then. We only know that it will be available for PlayStation 5 and Xbox X/S Series.
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