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Since 2002, Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts franchise has been steadily going along thanks to mainline installments and a number of spinoffs across handhelds and phones. After Kingdom Hearts III closed out the original story in 2019, Square Enix has now said the previously announced fourth game will pave the way for some kind of end.
In an interview with Young Jump (and later translated by Siliconera), franchise co-creator Tetsuya Nomura explained some of his thought process behind developing Kingdom Hearts IV. In some ways, he wants the sequel (and the mobile spinoff Missing Link) to operate as a soft reboot, a common move for fourth entries. (See Halo, Assassin’s Creed, and so on.) But Nomura was also frank in saying that he’s steering the series toward its endgame because he’s getting too old for this shit. “I’m finally only a few years until retirement,” he said, “and it seems that retirement is ahead or complete [the game].” No question which one he’s picking, and he’s making the game as “a story to be completed.”
Is Kingdom Hearts IV going to kick off a simple trilogy, or a story as long as the original 18-game saga? That’s unclear, but Nomura further explained that he decided a reset was in order while making Kingdom Hearts III. It sounds like he’s really committed to this: not only does the sequel have a brand new logo, new writers have been brought on to fulfill his general aim of drawing in new audiences that might’ve been put off by the baggage of the first set of games.
Kingdom Hearts IV is set in a new location called the Quadratum, based on the real city of Shibuya and described as “unreality within reality.” That phrase has been a throughline for the games first setup in the original game as one of Sora’s first lines: “Is any of this real or not?” Nomura said he’s always wanted to hit the conclusion of that concept—and while it’s been a “long drive,” he wants Kingdom Hearts IV to finally get players there when it eventually comes out.
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