News ► Kingdom Hearts IV and Missing-Link officially announced!

[Squood!]

Anyone pinpoint the narrator's voice?

 

[ZeVaine]

So what if there are no "worlds" on the Sora side of the story.

What would be cool is Sora visiting an arcade or toy store in Quadradum (there's a huge department store in Shibuya for a start). Instead of gummi ships between worlds, taxi rides between buildings. Instead of literal worlds separating Disney properties, he visits Disney Castle via a literal video game. Or watches Steamboat Willie on the Quadradum version of Netflix.

Imagine while lost and lonely he stumbles across an ad for "Kingdom Hearts" and goes to an arcade to play events he actually experienced first-hand.

I actually like this a lot.
And it would work fine if Unreality/Fictional realm was just that - as it was even hinted in ToyBox world, that fictional worlds can be accessed in the KH verse, so it wouldn't be too surprising if in the fictional worlds that the real worlds appear as fictional properties. The problem is there's this whole "afterlife" element to it... which makes things screwy. Video games are fictional worlds, but also dead people go in the games... like what?

Your idea is something I could totally see working, though.

 

[Xagzan]

Anyone pinpoint the narrator's voice?

I just assumed it was Yozora. Though I haven't heard his JP voice.

 

[Face My Fears]

I originally didn't plan to comment on this until tomorrow, but now I'm feeling that I might not sleep very much tonight if I don't write this right away...

The biggest surprise for me is the lack of side/non-numbered games before KH4. Both the ending of MoM and the secret ending of KH3 suggested that the next game would have Riku as the main protagonist. Did someone mess up the plans again?

IIRC the unofficial translation of the UX finale already suggested that Quadratum is a form of afterlife, but that was left out of the official one. And the characters we have seen there so far are exactly the ones that should be sort-of but not completely dead. Strelitzia being in there makes sense too, but at the same time it is a bit disappointing for me. I expected finding her to be a quest for Ven and Lauriam.

Another interesting thing is, Quadratum was supposed to be a world without light or darkness. But that clearly isn't the case anymore, as heartless have started appearing there. What could be the reason for this?

And then there is the big thing, another (mobile-only, WtF?!) game with BRAIN AS ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS!! Now, this might be a reason for me to figure out how to run mobile stuff on top of Linux, so I can check it out on my primary computer. I did try that before, almost a year ago when UX was ending, but gave up after a couple of failed attepts. Getting UX and Mtg Arena to work wasn't worth the time, because I could run both on my old Windows system.

I'm thinking about how the timeline could work in this game. To my understanding, Brain started a family in Scala (to become grandfather/ancestor of Eraqus), and then "died" or disappeared (really, time travelled back to the past and became a virus by taking over Luxu's body). As we all know, Disney is allergic to romance and family life stuff, so I don't think they want to show much of that in the story. But they do want to show the beginning (his arrival there) and the end. And it's also probably a long timespan, as Brain would wait until his kids are old enough to take care of themselves before implementing his plan. So, probably the game takes place near the end of that timespan, and we get a lot of flashbacks from earlier events. And from that I want to make a little crackpot prediction: If they are doing that, then it would make sense for the player character in this game to be Brain's child.

I think the heartless appear in Quadratum because Sora is there. I remember it being said in KH1 that the heartless were drawn to the keyblade. Maybe they were never drawn to Quadratum because 1) the people there didn't have actual hearts and 2) there were no keyblades there.

Strelitizia makes mention that Quadratum is an "after world" in the KH4 trailer, so I guess that means it's like an afterlife?

The Riku thing... maybe that has something to do with the light/day aspect of things. Sora wakes up in the day (so does Yozora in the car), while Sora/Riku/Yozora wandered around the city at night. Sora wandered around in his KH3 clothes, but now he's in his KH4 outfit. I feel like there's something different about the day/night settings in Quadratum. Verum Rex takes place at night, the secret video is at night, and there's also the differences in The Final World between day/night. Also, the song's name is "Secrets of the Night".

Also, could the narrator be Luxord/Durol?

 

[JJ1020]

Does this mean we can finally put the entire "KH will no longer have Disney" to bed? Sure this game looks more grim and dark than KH3 but I doubt we are gonna be in Quadratum for the entire game. The idea of Donald and Goofy going to Hades for help is a good start to how it could be built going forward for Disney involvement.

My hope is that the game has Sora go to the live-action worlds, while Kairi, Riku, Donald, and Goofy go to the Disney Animation and Pixar Worlds. It would give the game a unique mechanic.

One world I suspect will be in KH4 is Tierra de la Muerte, from Coco. This inclusion would make sense given that Donald and Goofy went to Hades presumably to resurrect Sora. Therefore, their mission will be to bring him back to the world of the living.

 

[LoneFox]

Luxu transported Brain into the future,

Yes, he did...

Brain didn't go back to the past.

...but that doesn't rule out this happening too.
Let's put it this way: I still haven't seen any theory that would explain all the known facts, including Luxu's face reveal, the stuff in KH3 secret reports, and a few things in UX story itself, without Brain and Luxu being the same person. If you know one, please give me a link to it.

But let's not derail the thread by starting an argument over this.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

If they are currently developing the worlds, I REALLY doubt KH4 is the only console game they are developing right now. I mean there’s still the possibility of UX coming to consoles according to the Nvidia leak.

I'm glad you brought that up because there's no way that game is not real when literally every other game from the Square Enix Nvidia leak has been confirmed to be real.

 

[GreyouTT]

 

[AR829038]

Yes, he did...

...but that doesn't rule out this happening too.
Let's put it this way: I still haven't seen any theory that would explain all the known facts, including Luxu's face reveal, the stuff in KH3 secret reports, and a few things in UX story itself, without Brain and Luxu being the same person. If you know one, please give me a link to it.

But let's not derail the thread by starting an argument over this.

Here's what happened, as far as I understand it:
Luxu meets Brain and removes his heart from his body, placing it in the ark to send it forward in time. Luxu then possesses Brain's heartless body and uses it as the first of his many vessels. Brain's heart arrives at an undisclosed point in time, most likely sometime in between UX and Dark Road when Scala ad Caelum looked very different, and once there, Sigurd resurrects his body via his hat and also his own knowledge of Brain, probably handed down through the ages by many Keyblade Masters after Ephemer.
That's about it. If there's anything still unsolved, let me know.

 

[horto12485]

My hope is that the game has Sora go to the live-action worlds, while Kairi, Riku, Donald, and Goofy go to the Disney Animation and Pixar Worlds. It would give the game a unique mechanic.

One world I suspect will be in KH4 is Tierra de la Muerte, from Coco. This inclusion would make sense given that Donald and Goofy went to Hades presumably to resurrect Sora. Therefore, their mission will be to bring him back to the world of the living.

Agreed

 

[ZeVaine]

Here's what happened, as far as I understand it:
Luxu meets Brain and removes his heart from his body, placing it in the ark to send it forward in time. Luxu then possesses Brain's heartless body and uses it as the first of his many vessels. Brain's heart arrives at an undisclosed point in time, most likely sometime in between UX and Dark Road when Scala ad Caelum looked very different, and once there, Sigurd resurrects his body via his hat and also his own knowledge of Brain, probably handed down through the ages by many Keyblade Masters after Ephemer.
That's about it. If there's anything still unsolved, let me know.

This is what I've always assumed as well, however, a really solid counter point has been - why would Luxu need/want take over Brain's body? Luxu isn't shown to be old or anything or in need of a new body yet...

Was it all just so that he could send Brain to the future? It certainly seems that way...

 

[AR829038]

This is what I've always assumed as well, however, a really solid counter point has been - why would Luxu need/want take over Brain's body? Luxu isn't shown to be old or anything or in need of a new body yet...

Was it all just so that he could send Brain to the future? It certainly seems that way...

Yes, that's my assumption.

 

[KingdomKurdistan]

I actually like this a lot.
And it would work fine if Unreality/Fictional realm was just that - as it was even hinted in ToyBox world, that fictional worlds can be accessed in the KH verse, so it wouldn't be too surprising if in the fictional worlds that the real worlds appear as fictional properties. The problem is there's this whole "afterlife" element to it... which makes things screwy. Video games are fictional worlds, but also dead people go in the games... like what?

Your idea is something I could totally see working, though.

I swear I'm not trying to be flippant but I just don't care about the plot specifics of whether it's a purgatory or an afterlife in the literal sense. For me the thematic considerations on subjectivity, memory and trauma being explored is far more important than the specific plot mechanic through which they're explored.

Whether that's the granular details of how nobodies are created to whether Quadradum is before, during, after, besides, above or below the original KH universe. In fact, I'd rather they didn't explain it at all, leaving these plot specifics open to interpretation (or avoidance, if people just don't wanna dwell on it).

That would also end the whole "KH is so confusing" take dead in its tracks. KH isn't confusing. It's overexplained. And when you explain something, you give importance to the understanding of it regardless of whether it's warranted. Would DDD really be confusing if we were only told the vague broadstroke details on time travel? Nope. It would be intuitive. And those wanting to dive deep into the specifics would still be able to. We really didn't need Young Zehanort explaining it via scientific notation.

I'd love to read fan interpretations and analysis of exactly what the implications are once it's out. Maybe I'll read yours on whether it's purgatory or an afterlife or a parallel universe. I just really hope the series moves away from the "explain down to the atomic level and dig yourself deeper into a plot hole" way of writing. The game doesn't need to tell us nor justify its more abstract aspects in logical and rational terms.

 

[Chaser]

Nomura will probably explain the heartless using the same answer in Stranger of Paradise. The world is in balance but Sora and his light throws that out so the universe throws in extra darkness to reestablish that balance.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Was it all just so that he could send Brain to the future? It certainly seems that way...

Well Luxu did say that

You're brilliant in every sense of the word.
It'd be a waste if your life were to end here.

so it stands to reason that he made a deal with Brain to get him out of the collapsing world so he may be "of use" further down the timeline.

If there's anything I've taken from Luxu's way of doing things so far as well as all things we know so far of "body snatching" or rather moving hearts into bodies not originally belonging to them it is that the forced method against the will of the original owner of the body like Xehanort did with Terra is neither the only nor likely the most common method to do so.

So in Brain's and Luxu's case I do think it was a voluntary agreed thing to do.

 

[the red monster]

the dearly beloved that plays during missing link trailer is easily the best dearly beloved version so far. need clean version asap.

 

[HakaishinChampa]

That, or his hair is starting to thin early...

Yozora gave him a haircut

 

[GreyouTT]

I thought this was the case seeing as there was no release window confirmed. The development of Kingdom Hearts IV shouldn't take as long as Kingdom Hearts III did when it switched from Luminous Engine to Unreal Engine.

The Nvidia leak did say September 2023, so I'm gonna assume January 2024.

 

[Squood!]

The Nvidia leak did say September 2023, so I'm gonna assume January 2024.

I mean, it has been right so far.

And I sorta doubt early development means what we all think it means.

If September 2023 is their target release, it'd make sense that they'll be trying to have it be close enough by a few months if they can't make the date.

 

[ZeVaine]

Nomura will probably explain the heartless using the same answer in Stranger of Paradise. The world is in balance but Sora and his light throws that out so the universe throws in extra darkness to reestablish that balance.

Yeah, probably.

I feel like all with the messing around with MoM's plan in UX between Luxu, Brain, and the Darknesses, and the fact MoM specifically mentions unreality to his Darkness counter part, makes me wonder if there wasn't some intentional effort there to just sneak a darkness into Quadratum.