KH Producer & Brand Manager Ichiro Hazama comments on 2022 in Weekly Famitsu

[Sign]

Famitsu has released its annual compilation of comments from game developers as they share their keywords and aspirations for the new year. Among them is Kingdom Hearts Series Producer and Brand Manager, Ichiro Hazama, who had this to say about 2022:

Keyword for 2022:

20th

Aspirations for 2022:

Hello everyone! This is SQEX's Hazama.

This upcoming year is 2022, when Kingdom Hearts will celebrate its 20th anniversary!

What an achievement!

When KH1 was in development, I was working in the Production Department. As soon as I got off work, I'd visit the development team on their floor, and have a lot of fun playing the game.

But of course, we can't just play around in 2022.

We've already announced that we'll be holding a 20th anniversary event, developing the series for Nintendo Switch, and more. We'll do our best to deliver it to you.

So, thank you again!

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Hazama’s shirt is a god damn mood

 

[MATGSY]

developing the series for Nintendo Switch,

Translation: "Dumping the PC version on Cloud servers".

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Translation: "Dumping the PC version on Cloud servers".

Essentially lol but watered down

 

[HakaishinChampa]

Where can I buy that shirt

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

As a note, people online are mistranslating Hazama’s statement about “playing”. He is saying that now in 2022 he is working hard on KH (alongside the dev team), not just jumping down to the dev floor to play the game for fun like in the old days.

Mistranslations have been interpreting him saying “we won’t just be playing KH in 2022” but that isn’t his statement at all lol

 

[Cyborg009]

get your raincoats and umbrellas folks, next year's gonna be an uber soaker

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

get your raincoats and umbrellas folks, next year's gonna be an uber soaker

We’ll see…a lot of projects have been impacted by COVID, and KH certainly would have been hit like the others. We just have to hope that whatever was in the pipeline had already been well into development before COVID threw a wrench into everything.

 

[KeybladePenguin]

Personally I am more curious if we are getting a new game AT ALL. It could be 2025 before we find out what happened to Sora.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

Personally I am more curious if we are getting a new game AT ALL. It could be 2025 before we find out what happened to Sora.

I don’t think they’d have us waiting that long. The main dev team has been working on something for years now, even before KH3 released…

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

NGL, I ain't opposed to another medium sized BBS/DDD-like game. Better than mobile shit.

Agreed. Something to hold our attentions for longer than a day would be nice. MOM barely scratched the itch since it was a quick game.

And look at where we are with UXDR lol

 

[Kaweebo]

[parsehtml]<p><a href="https://www.famitsu.com/news/202112/27245579.html?page=8">Famitsu</a>&nbsp;has released its annual compilation of comments from game developers as they share their keywords and aspirations for the new year. Among them is Kingdom Hearts Series Producer and Brand Manager, Ichiro Hazama, who had this to say about 2022:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.famitsu.com/images/000/245/579/y_61c2fb5d0e9d0.webp"><img src="https://www.famitsu.com/images/000/245/579/y_61c2fb5d0e9d0.webp" alt="" width="202" height="350" /></a></p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Keyword for 2022:</strong></p>
<p>20th</p>
<p><strong>Aspirations for 2022:</strong></p>
<p>Hello everyone! This is SQEX's Hazama.</p>
<p>This upcoming year is 2022, when Kingdom Hearts will celebrate its 20th anniversary!</p>
<p>What an achievement!</p>
<p>When KH1 was in development, I was working in the Production Department. As soon as I got off work, I'd visit the development team on their floor, and have a lot of fun playing the game.</p>
<p>But of course, we can't just play around in 2022.</p>
<p>We've already announced that we'll be holding a 20th anniversary event, developing the series for Nintendo Switch, and more. We'll do our best to deliver it to you.</p>
<p>So, thank you again!</p>
</blockquote>[/parsehtml]

Where is Dark Road dammit

 

[Andrea carlino]

『キングダム ハーツ』20周年記念の発表まとめ。20周年イベントが開催＆一番くじの発売決定。『ダーク ロード』エンディングまで配信なども | ゲーム・エンタメ最新情報のファミ通.com

スクウェア・エニックスは、人気シリーズ『キングダム ハーツ』が2022年3月に20周年を迎えるのに合わせて、さまざまな施策を発表。20周年発表トレーラーを公開した。各情報の詳細は今後発表するほか、映像に含まれていない施策もあるという。

www.famitsu.com

 

[Andrea carlino]

La versione offline di "Kingdom Hearts Dark Road", che descrive la storia della partenza di xehanort in gioventù, è stata decisa per aggiornare la Ver.5.0.
Sarà consegnato tutto in una volta fino alla fine di quest'inverno (20 marzo 2022).

 

[2 quid is good]

@Kaweebo there's your answer

 

[KeybladePenguin]

I don’t think they’d have us waiting that long. The main dev team has been working on something for years now, even before KH3 released…

God I hope so. I hate being in this limbo.

 

[Chaser]

KH3 went gold in November 2018, and, aside from a team to do patches and Re Mind, pre-production would have begun on the next games in the series (Re Mind and MoM's cutscenes would have kept Osaka busy while writing, planning etc. was underway for their next project.)

It's been over 3 years since then and they have an established engine and assets to work with so a 3-4 year turn around shouldn't be out the question, COVID delays pending. Square Enix has a bit of a busy year with their other games (Stranger of Paradise, Forspoken, Final Fantasy XVI as their big hitters) so trying to find a slot in 2022 for Kingdom Hearts is tough as it is a little crowded and FFXVI should be a big and isolated release for SE in the second half of the year (not to mention other heavy hitters coming later this year.)

Could follow 2.8 and 3 and launch in January 2023 though, in which case hey, only 12 months to go

 

[Elysium]

Hopefully I finally find a PS5 this year with FFXVI and a new KH game on the way.

 

[AdrianXXII]

We’ll see…a lot of projects have been impacted by COVID, and KH certainly would have been hit like the others. We just have to hope that whatever was in the pipeline had already been well into development before COVID threw a wrench into everything.

Yeah I can't help but feel that COVID might have derailed the KH plans for this year. My gut feeling is that they originally planned to release a game this year for the 20th anniversary like they did with 3D, but after 2 years of Corona the game didn't develop quite as much as it would have normally and will now release a year or two later than planned.

 

[HakaishinChampa]

Yeah I can't help but feel that COVID might have derailed the KH plans for this year. My gut feeling is that they originally planned to release a game this year for the 20th anniversary like they did with 3D, but after 2 years of Corona the game didn't develop quite as much as it would have normally and will now release a year or two later than planned.

I'm sure they'll have something releasing this year.

At the very least they'll release a new compilation and/or next-gen version of KH3