YIPPEEEEE WAHOOOOOOOO ILY ORACLE, ILY SORA, ILY NOMURA, ILY SQUARE ENIX I FORGIVE YOU FOR MISSING-LINK

Man, 1131 days from April 10 2022 to now.

Fuck it looks good.

Those heartless are weird!

Missing-Link had to die so we could have the first KH4 news in 1,131 days!

This surely means it won't be at SGF right? It seems like they're telling us to wait longer than just a month

1131 DAYS I CANNOT BELIEVE

[USER=248371]@Darkspawn[/USER] I THINK THIS IS A GOOD OMEN FOR US

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Good idea of them to show some of KH4, otherwise bitterness over Missing Link would fester. Let some light in!

I wonder what the phone is about. Will Sora getting/making phone calls be plot relevant...?

Are we really getting a trailer in a few weeks?

FOR REAL?!

What I love about having a playable Mickey segment in particular is that it might be an indication that the lore and story will told in a more concise manner in this game. Had this been 10 years ago, the Mickey portions might've been its own game. By the looks of it, it will be much more detailed than the Riku segments in KH3. Am I getting ahead of myself? Absolutely, but f*** it, it looks great.

Heartless lookin' like they belong in....

I like all the moving gears Mickey is on. If we ever revisited Gizmo Gallery(Disney Town) I expected it to be bigger and better, looking something like this. Looks like a fun level.

mickey in scala is probably gonna be the prologue this time around (roxas kh2, aqua kh3)
was expecting it to be riku

I was wondering what those heartless were in the top image on the global twitter but it looks like in the JP version it's obviously those Gigas

Edit: OMG Playable Mickey in SCALA <3

I wonder if he'll play like KH2 mickey

Oh, this is a nice surprise! Those Heartless( I’m assuming) look badass.

It’s one of two scenarios:

A.) They were basically forced to announce ML’s cancellation now because of their financial results meeting and this was a consolation.

B.) They were waiting to announce ML’s cancellation until they could share something about KH4 and this is the teaser before the big reveal-reveal trailer in the coming weeks.

I honestly think B is more likely. I know I’m our resident optimist, but there wasn’t anything in the financial results that spoke toward cancelling ML directly. ML was likely cancelled by the end of March based on certain developers from the game likely looking for work around that time. So why wait until now when we’re just a couple weeks away from SGF and other events?

They’ll also be announcing the SGF partners soon, so we may see SE on the list. They similarly teased Rebirth ahead of its trailer there, so I think it’s at least a possibility that something is coming soon,

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the realistic heartless look creepy as hell

SO FUCKING HYPED

Please lmk when it's decent to create a new when are we expecting news 2.0 ! Sad I wasn't able to post one last reply there

So is Quadratum going to be empty or do NPCs run away when you fight heartless?

Also, Sora wearing a smartwatch lol

San Fransokyo had a nice balance between spots where NPCs talked and spots where Heartless appeared. I imagine they'd be trying to strike that sort of balance again with Quadratum.

I feel like it's a bit too early to close the "when" thread

I imagine we as Sora will get to interact with some NPCs before the Heartless invasion starts. Also someone mentioned that the enemies could be Gigas? If so I hope we get those in the Disney worlds as well.

SE pulled a GTA 6 news situation before GTA 6

YES. I am so glad they killed off that mobile gachatrash and gave us some screenshots. Yes it is blatant damage control but it is so much better than waiting for some FOMO garbage. Thank you SE, trailer when????????

Holy mother of... I've never had such a surge of mixed emotions in one day. This is incredible! The game looks incredible, Sora and Strelizita's glowup is really noticeable as well. The Heartless designs are definitely a bit odd, but I think they will grow on us after a while. The definitely fit the more realistic aesthetic.

The only downside may be that, from the statement about more news when the time is right, I wonder if that is saying that we may not get another trailer for a while longer, but I'd love to be proven wrong. Still this feels so unreal, actually getting an update after all this time.

This is literally all we wanted. They could have divided this image by 7 and given it to us in pieces over the course of the last year and we'd have been a lot happier. Looks so amazing

For some reason I find it really strange to see Sora standing around cars. I don't know why. Maybe it's just weird imagining him driving around like a normal person instead of sprinting and jumping everywhere.

I dunno...this just feels kinda...sour to me.

So their hand was forced, huh?

Something about these screens gives me Nier vibes. And I see playable Mickey. ?

not sure why people online saying the game looks unfinished and will release after FVII part 3. this looks clean as hell.
can easily see it releasing around summer next year (july 20) if the rest of the game looks this good.

The Switch 2 is already sweating just looking at those pictures.

I’m very happy about these pictures! I loved the Mickey one especially, it was drop-dead gorgeous. You can tell they improved the game visually like, a lot a lot. I’m pretty satisfied with these news!

Won't lie the art direction is terrible. I thought it would look like FF7 Remake/Rebirth but instead it has this odd saturated look; and Quadratum somehow looks worse than it looked in KH3 ReMind. Something tells me that haven't been working on this game over the years.

I basically only lurk here so nobody here knows me lol but the combo of ML being dead (sad about the cutscenes we'll never see but happy overall ✨fuck✨ gacha games) and finally getting some KH4 crumbs single-handedly got me to reset my password and log back in to participate in the community. Was silently hoping the news thread would make it to 300 pages before it got locked but above all else I'm just happy to finally see more KH4. Even if it turns out we're still a ways off from a proper trailer I hope they drip feed us more screenshots even if they're works in progress.

The playable Mickey segment is very interesting and gives me a good feeling about gameplay variety outside of the core gameplay of Sora. That library looks warm and beautiful.

So, what if those two lights opposing the Darkside are actually Donald and Goofy making their grand entrance?

I know these are not happening, and I don’t expect them to, but man with these visual improvements I cannot imagine what a beautiful Atlantis or Treasure Planet world would look like.

We got Kingdom Hearts 4 screenshots before Missing-Link....

And with that, Kingdomers, I think it's time to retire that joke forever.

[S]Thank god.[/S]

You guys have got me fucking giggling and kicking my feet over this Donald and Goofy stuff, sincerely shut the fuck up!

If those two lights are the duck and dog I guess it'll be just like the DDD moment, they didn't really know how to travel properly and just fall right onto the monster without meaning to.

I guess the lights could also be some Foretellers, since they apparently can break the rules and bounce between realities.

Imagine once Donald arrives he cast Zettaflare. Only for him to be perfectly fine because he's already dead

In the Mickey screenshot, you can see that the only command option is Attack. This is a reference to how no matter how hard he tries not to, Mickey lashes out at the people closest to him.

And I dunno, guys... I don't think two Foretellers would wildly shoot themselves through the air at the Darkside, with one being a distinctly blue hue and the other being an orange hue with two large feet jutting out. Not a foreteller move.

EXCUSE ME PLAYABLE MICKEY??? HELLO. WOW SQUARE, NOW I'M EXPECTING A NEW TRAILER. GIMME.


Also, yikes, Sora looks WAY more like Noctis than last time. ):

I’m thinking the keychain rail is our first look at the Build command in action considering the meter above Sora’s HUD icon is empty. I don’t think it’s a form change thing since the command menu is normal.

Sora's wearing a smartwatch, hm, something tells me that's gonna be where Build comes into play...

Also is it just me/lighting or is he wearing different shoes in the top screenshot and the bottom?

His entire design has been adjusted, Sora's back to wearing cargo poofy pants like he did in KH3, his necklace is no longer a choker, he's got a watch and his face has been adjusted. Gotta say it's a pretty nice improvement.

OMG we're really living in a timeline where we actually get KH news that isn't merch announcements.

The shoes look the same to me. You can still see the yellow / white banding on the shoe through the blue hue.

---

I'm probably completely misremembering it but the Scala we went to in KH3 was built from a memory in Xehanort's heart right? If so, I'm really intrigued what current day Scala looks like and if it'll be very close to what Missing-Link and the end of Dark Road showed, or if it'll be as white as it was in KH3.

Yellow Bar above "Commands" is probably the Situation Command/Formchange gauge

Item tab showing the overall amount of items before opening is neat.

Why do the shadow heartless look like Sora clones to me?

Oh something! We finally have something! I was about to phone it in and leave the fandom because I’m in my bloody 30’s and didn’t want to wait forever, and seven screenshots, SEVEN SCREENSHOTS, is all it took to hook me back in.

Hurray, but also, god damn it!

..The Heartless are very human shaped. What if Quadratum THATS what humans who are turned into Heartless look like???

KH4 casually blowing KH3 out of the water in terms of KH-original locations in SCREENSHOTS is ludicrous, that library is giving Hollow Bastion library

Mickey why are you jumping across chandeliers when there is a staircase right in front of you!?

I mean these are still screenshots of seemingly one world lol, still going into kh4 with 0 expectations

It's not surprising they're focusing on Quadratum since that IS the starting location.

I want those lights to be Donald and Goofy, I want them coming in as a realistic duck and dog! Come on Square!

One of the SE reps said to be sure to follow the KH Twitter as the only source for “upcoming KH4 updates.” Could easily just be marketing speak, but kinda implies there will be more sooner than later.

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sora is really me he wears a smart watch

Also I can’t get over how much the Heartless remind me of Shades in NieR: Gestalt/Replicant.

Never in all my years did I think this movie would be relevant to Kingdom Hearts…

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Oh this is nice. It reminds me of the discussions and jokes during KH3’s promotion

I wonder if the key icon next to attack means Sora has access to weapons that aren't a Keyblade.

Sora uses the phone to travel to different worlds like in The Matrix.
Sora can speak to Riku but only through that single phone.
Sora gets prank called by Elrena and others that would have a grudge against him.

You're right, I forgot about KH2 having a Keyblade icon. Weird that Magic doesn't have a little hat to go with the Key and the Potion icon.

There goes my thought that Unreality doesn't have keychains so you're stuck with the Kingdom Key and you collect various other weapons, like a lightsaber or Héctor's leg.

Still, Mickey doesn't have a Key icon next to his attack so idk. I'm probably reading too much into the UI.

Holy moly! Why does stuff like this happen only when I'm asleep?

But at last the evil has finally been defeated (the drought) and I cannot wait to see the Home on the Range-world in this style.

It's a shame the screenshots aren't of a higher quality because there are some upgrades to the graphics over the reveal that are noticeable but trickier to see due to the compression and size of the screenshots.

The materials on Strelitzia's dress have been improved, and her face doesn't look as anaemic as it once did (RIP 0.2 Kairi). Sora's face has changed shape a bit and his hair is darker. The Darkside battle now has darkness growing on the building next to it and the sky has been changed from a flat grey to a more brooding storm with blues and purples in the cloud.

And they gave Mickey a fat ass.

‘...when the time is right.’ Well, the time is right about now, Square — show us a new trailer and a release date, pleeeeeease!

Sora stole Scott Lang's tech, huh?

The new screenshots are nice. Really impressive how realistic they look.

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Oh boi, hope that is not true for KH IV, dont wanna wait till I am almost 30 to play another KH game

Man I'm going to be mad if KH4 comes out in 2027.

Finally I can go back to being Luminary!

I’m currently putting my release date prediction at 4/10/26.

If FY 2027 is the proposed release year, then perhaps one may expect a PS6 release as well since rumors claim that the PS6 will release that year too.

PS6 can wait its turn. I barely have any PS5 games that take advantage of the console (and likely never will ?) and with the Pro costing $1200 a PS6 is going to be hella more expensive.

Some people more in the know than me (which is a lot of people, I'll admit!) say internally FFVII-3 is aiming for 2028 so there is quite a bit in SE's schedule to fill up from March 2026 onwards, if they will have stuff ready to go.

Mickey too...
Now we really need to see a Trailer this summer. But maybe it's too soon?

Anyway, everyone know that the release is far away.
It's more like 2027. But hey, the year is made by 12 months! So, January is better than December...
But there is also FF VIIR Part 3, so which comes first?

Sora looks majestic.

The screenshots look great! I'm on team 2026-January 2027 now
(curious on what they'll do for KH's 25th if IV is released before then).

I know this was definitely damage control, but I'm hoping we'll get at least
one more update before the end of the year or a lengthy Nomura interview.
It feels so good to finally see how the game’s progressing after such a long time!

I'm thinking at some point, Mickey will run into trouble in Scala with either one of the Foretellers or Pete
and Maleficent catching him snooping around there for info they don’t want him to tell Yen Sid and the others.

might buy Ps5 pro soon before the potential price increase

Oh yeah, if Mickey is in Scala it be nice if he ran into a reformed Elrena and Laurium. Luxord is probably too busy chauffeuring the Commander around and who knows where Demyx is currently.

RIP THREAD

I promised myself I would not get too hype over KH4 like I did with KH3. But crap! The level of detail in that scala screenshot (I thought it was TT at first too!) Looks so good! Eagerly awaiting the next trailer

This has been the best 24 hours on the forums in a long time.

I still haven't bought a PS5 since I don't play a whole lot of games besides indie stuff, been waiting until KH4 comes out. At this point, it might actually be feasible for me to just wait for the PS6. Or just play it with very low settings on my laptop or Steam Deck.

lets savor these past 24hrs! light above darkness!

OMG HELLO??? What an amazing thing to wake up to ?

It looks absolutely INCREDIBLE!! I‘ll admit I was a little scared of KH4 leaning more into realistic graphics but I have to say I like the stylization! Also Sora looks SO CUTEE he‘s still my little bean

I love the implication of the Mickey screenshot. I hope we‘ll jump from character to character a lot more this time

I really think these are screen captures from a trailer. They just seem a lot more like the kind of screenshots we would get for KH3 after new trailers, especially with the gameplay. When they would share a random screenshot during KH3’s development, they were more carefully posed and framed like an intentional photograph. Likely taken directly from the dev build of the game where they can manipulate the character models, remove UI, etc. Like this one:

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But the KH4 gameplay screens look more like someone took a screenshot from the trailer they’d been provided and had to make the best out of what they got. Since the fight is meant to be seen in motion for the trailer, these screenshots aren’t going to look as perfectly clean.

I love the color of the sky in Quadratum. It is bright, but it's a little hazy. The global lighting keeps it from seeming like a fun, sunny day in Japan. It looks still, desolate, and jarring, like this is not the place Sora should be, and that something is very wrong in Kingdom Hearts

I'm nuts for the idea of it, because once we finally get to go to a Disney world it's going to be like an HDR kick in the face

i saw that there was two versions of some screenshots, namely the one where sora' riding on a chain and the mickey one where he's on top of a chandelier. albeit the latter is far more subtle.

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it's due to this that i believe these shots provided to us came from direct gameplay footage, rather than a trailer. because why not just use the exact same screenshots to share with us?

Not sure how privy the social media team is to the names of things within KH4, but the alt tag on their Bluesky post says they are heartless and the big one is a Darkside.... so I guess we continue calling it that for now! Nothing changes from the last three years of calling it a Darkside!

I'm wondering what will happen to the plot of Missing link if the game is canceled. Considering that the plot of this game was important for KH4.

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god I hope we get a trailer soon....

I like the new robot heartless. Even though it doesn't really look like it, it reminded me of Syndrome's robot from the Incredibles.

I doubt they'll have two city focused worlds worlds though, that would be a bit too similar.

Good morning!

I still can't believe yesterday was real. So many emotions!

Do you think those heartless are new or the Quadratum version of the usual ones? Because I think the humanoid one looks like it could be the Quadratum version of the Shadow.

Man the more I look at it the more it looks humans who've been warped by Darkness into these monstrosities instead of the cute little shadows they are in normal KH graphics..

The big fist guys give me Hulk/Infinity Gauntlet vibes.

Hopefully we get to see all of this in motion sometime soon!
I will say, though, that Sora's face looks off still. The shot where he wakes up in the sofa from the first trailer looks good, then when he steps outside with Strelitzia it looks awful. In the new screenshot, it seems like his features are too small. Or maybe his cheeks are too round.

The Mickey screenshot looks the best out of the seven by far!

I will say that I still need to see the game in motion to be convinced of the artstyle, because I think the way everything is animated is what will make it feel uncany or not.

So, I don't think the enemies we saw in the screenshot are new. For me it seems that Sora may have brought the heartless to quad by accident so now we are seeing more heartless through quads lens

Honestly I love the artstyle even tho I wasn't a fan of the trailer

For my money, Big Hands and Helicopter Seed are new enemies. They might work similarly to enemies like the Large Body (having to attack from the back, for instance) but are ultimately new.

The humanoid one seems like a Neo-Shadow redesign like the Darkside we previously saw.

So the more I look at Sora, the more I think he looks like Cloud in FF7R. Not exactly, of course, but I mean as far as the art direction is going.

that image with sora riding his chain and the new heartless has a weird distinct lack of shadows for any of the character models and it's really jarring.

Holy dog biscuits, this really got me hyped!!
After some heartbreaking news today of the cancellation of a KH mobile game,
this piece of news really seems to make up for it!

If these screenshots show the game in Unreal Engine 5,
then Oh my dog, these visuals are ABSOLUTELY beautiful!!

My spots are READY!!???

Woah, someone actually works here? That's hilarious.
Glad to see a glimmer of hope that I might be able to start coming back here for news instead of relying on a constellation of disparate youtube channels.

I just realized. Sora looks like cloud now. Hmm, could this perhaps be a design choice that goes along with the theory that some of Sora's memories are missing? Could he be in a similar situation to cloud?

Someone pointed out that the command menu options are roads. Love the cool little details like that.

The rotary phone screams to me, missed opportunity for shoehorned classic merch a la Epic Mickey.
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I saw someone in JP twitter mentioning something about it and also searching a bit, apparently in Japan there is this famous black telephone that is suppose to call a loved one who is dead. Maybe it's referenced from something like this since Quadratum is the world of the dead and maybe call to connect the ones on the other side or something?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_phone

Are those Infinity Gauntlets!?!? ???

Now that the adrenaline and hype is over, I do wonder what’s going to happen if all the Missing Link plot points that were inevitably going to set up something significant for KH4. Maybe I‘m misremembering but wasn‘t it literally going to be important as hell for the story coming after KH3/MOM? I wonder if they‘re going to have to re-write some things

Sora really be looking like Cloud's little brother now. Still don't like the hair, and I still don't like the artstyle but I'll live.

I'm seeing some complaints that the gameplay screenshot looks unpolished, but I'm not really seeing it? A few people have noted the apparent lack of shadow/lighting on Sora's face there, but it's really not too dissimilar from how some of the character models in FF7 Rebirth look during gameplay. There was similar discourse after the Rebirth re-reveal about Cloud/Sephiroth's faces but they made it into the final game mostly untouched IIRC. I'm definitely no expert but the game looks pretty far along to my eyes.

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I’ve seen so many people complain about the lack of shadows on the enemies but get pissy when told that pure blood heartless have never had shadows in the games ?

Those are probably Shadows aren't they? How creepy is that? They look like humans because they are practically the shadows of humans. Imagine how scary it would be, people disappearing because the darkness takes them and more and more of these "monsters" start appearing. It's like some horror scenario straight out of a nightmare.

Not that seeing a swarm of the ant-like shadows running towards you wouldn't be scary in any real scenario but still...

All our favorite anime bozos spent a year trying to break into Quadratum when they could have just asked Phineas and Ferb to build an "Unreality Device" that they easily could have built in their backyard over the course of a single montage. But jokes aside, I remember when they marketed Perry in Japan a whole bunch and think there's potential for him to break into summon territory as Agent P. Phineas and Ferb is coming back for two more seasons and had that Disney+ movie not long ago, and Disney seems to treat the series as a sort of evergreen thing. If any Disney TV original thing were to ever make it in, I unironically think it could be P&F.

Mickey being around all those books makes me think that the mouse will fight some sort of spell book baddie in the library, similar to the Mimic Master in BBS.

Ngl, Perry or the boys being a summon at least would be pretty cool.
I’d love for there to be a KH crossover to promote IV in Season 6 of Phineas and Ferb but I doubt that’d happen

?"Discovering something that doesn't exist"?

cut to P&F playing Missing Link

I think Phineas & Ferb would fit in well at Twilight Town or Radiant Garden.

Or maybe they could be on different worlds, casually breaking the world (b)order. Imagine you go to the Star Wars world and they're just chilling. They'd be the Chadley of the game trying to get data on different worlds for their Summer Homework Project thing or something.

With more people who played KH getting into animation, it’d be fun to see if P+F has a KH reference in the new season like the Proud Family reboot did. That was such a fun Easter egg.

I enjoy these screens and hope we see a trailer sometime this year.

So when are we expecting a trailer? This summer? This winter? Next Year?

Insane to me that I woke up today feeling actually excited and hopeful for KH4, something this series hasn’t made me feel for a loooong time.

I had a gut feeling about SGF this year having a trailer, but now it’s actually viable. I feel like I did in June 2017 leading up to the orchestra ?

I'm still a bit cautious but more and more people on social media are buzzing about KH4 coming out in 2026 so I don't want to get too hopeful but this is the livliest the fandom has been since the 20th anniversary.

I find it funny that I see online 2 groups of people:

ones saying this is going to come out fairly soon (2006)
the others saying this is super far off and coming out really late (2007~2008)

After seeing these stills and assuming that everything we're seeing is from the
Unreal Engine 5 build of the game, I'm back on Team 2026-January 2027.

Trailer wise, I'd love to see KH IV appear at SGF, but I doubt it.
I'm hoping we'll see one by TGS, Jump Festa, TGA or that Square will drop one
on their own for a Christmas present like they did for 2.8 and KH III back in 2015
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For what it's worth, and I'm not really an industry expert, I don't think these stills change anything about the development cycle. The positive interpretation is that the cancellation of ML freed the marketing team to finally do things. The negative interpretation is that this is just damage control, sugar with the medicine. I dunno which of these two is the reality yet.

Based on last’s years timing, there’s a good chance we could find out the SGF partners today. If not, probably next week. If SE is on the list, I’ll feel pretty good about our odds for a KH4 trailer.

- DQ1&2 will likely be at Nintendo events as will the Switch port of Remake.
- Bravely Default Remaster will be out by then.
- DQXII probably won’t be re-revealed until after DQ1&2 release.
- FF9 Remake seems to be in limbo and insiders claim we won’t see it for a while
- SE confirmed major titles will release between April 2026 and March 2026
- KH4 is currently the only major title we’ve actually seen content from.
- FF Tactics remaster could be a dark horse, but I think that’s more likely at a Direct as well

Honestly feel bad for DQ12.

It doesn't even have an actual logo yet.

Yen Sid's "your search shall begin.. in Scala Ad Caelum!" always felt like a cringe stinger for MelMem's secret ending to me, because I was always assuming Mickey would go do what he always does-- acquire expository information offscreen. The fact that this won't just be a jabberjaw infodump KH3 style cutscene but an actual playable sequence is oh so nice... so fancy.. so beautiful..

Hey so this is insane

Also, if fully playable Mickey is on the table… maybe playable Donald and Goofy? ?

I’d be all for some sections where the party gets split up, so we play as another character until they reunite like we see in Rebirth.

I've long wanted a KH game where every Disney world is a TV show. KH4 ain't that game, though.

I at least hope we get some traditional Disney worlds whether it be 2D 3D or Pixar.

I want anything other than Disney knock off live action crap. (Star Wars and Marvel are fine.)

I am really curious how they will handle the game's structure since it's kinda new for the series.
When will Sora meet with Donald and Goofy? What will happen to Donaldo and Goofy when they finally meet Sora? Will they be able to come to Quadratum with Sora? How will they look if they do come to Quadratum? How will they structure the Quadratum side of the world and Sora's side of the world in terms of overall game's progression?

So, for those who don't know. The reason that Hercules continues to be a world in nearly all the kingdom hearts games Is really simple. It's Nomura's favorite Disney movie. That being said it'll probably be a world in kh4.

However, something else I want to touch on real quick. I hope Riku and sora have separate stories. That will link up to one another. Perhaps like a Dlc Riku or a story you unlock after beating kh4 once. Idk just a thought.

they're obviously not going the normal dog/duck route. donald also has a degree of control over how he looks, so I'm expecting D&G to just have higher fidelity materials (similar but not exactly alike their appearance in the caribbean) and maybe some fashionable street clothes to help them blend more into the environment.

I'm also a proponent of the theory that Sora, Strelitzia, Donald, and Goofy won't even be able to interact with or be seen by the locals of Quadratum thanks to getting-there-by-getting-killed, so it's not exactly like they need to appear inconspicuous.

This won’t happen, but it would be funny if they get to Quadratum and their character models were just Tony Anselmo and Bill Farmer.

But really, assuming they get there, it will be like a combination of these two. The textures from the Caribbean, but the modern street outfits from Toy Box.

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On another note, I’m curious if the bottom center picture is actually part of the cutscene or gameplay where the UI is hidden. Or maybe the UI fades out when you transition from gameplay to cutscene for a more seamless transition? It just looks like he’s centered in the camera more like a gameplay moment.

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Same with the Mickey gameplay, I wonder if he really doesn’t have a health bar/magic or if maybe it disappears outside of battle like in Remake/Rebirth.

I keep saying it but Donald and Goofy should be hi-rez duck and dog in Quadratum like how Sora is a hi-rez boy. That way the shift between Quadratum and Disney Worlds is even more hilarious with all three of them.

I'm sorry but I really need a Coco world and I hope we don't get many return-worlds from KH3. I want new stuff. I'd take a Lilo and Stitch world solely because Sora has never been there and the spaceship from BBS is not enough. I want a mix of old and new properties, 2D and CGI

I think Atlantis thematically would be an excellent world to parallel to Scala/Daybreak Town’s fall. In fact, those Titan-esque Heartless kinda give subterranean vibes that I could see fitting in there. ?

Loving this. It's really giving that modern live action Disney aesthetic ✨

They did the right thing by cancelling Missing Link. I don't even know how they thought it was a good idea doing another mobile game after Dark Road flopped.

I like what I see in those KH4 screenshots, but I also have the feeling the game may not come out before 2027, which sucks.

mickey reusing kh3 animations also soft-confirms the economic reuse of kh3 assets, which should theoretically save an amount of development time creating character models, locations, and animations. there's more than one reason to believe we'll be getting this sooner rather than later, but anything can happen. ouch, my ass!! i'm on the fence!!

Just looking at the screenshots, Sora's stance is exactly like the one he has in KH3 when he's idle, so yeah they be doing some recycling which is expected.

I really truly hope we get a new Kingdom Hearts IV trailer at Summer Game Fest.

If not then, there's always Tokyo Game Show, The Game Awards, or Jump Festa.

I might be blind but I just now noticed the last command is "Build"! What do you guys think is up with that? I‘ve seen some discussions saying it could be about having an actual "character build", eg. attack build, magic build, but I really doubt that especially because I think something like that would be in ths pause/config menu, not in real-time action like that? I thought it might have something to do with a new Keyblade mechanic. Maybe the yellow bar has something to do with it too?

they could go crazy with this scrap and build thing. if they're able to implement it seamlessly into combat, i can only imagine the incredible movement options you'll have as sora.

let them cook!

The only thing I’m nervous about is if it is going to be something that slows down combat too much. Like it’d be cool if we can design constructs outside of battle and equip them for Sora to summon in combat. (And maybe have blueprints for those of us who suck at designing things like this. Lol) I don’t know how I’d feel about it being one of those things that pauses gameplay for you to build something, which could be tedious.

really want to see some combat footage. I want to see how the combos look.

I'm hoping there won't be a feature like attractions which I'd rather turn off and never bother with. Here's hoping the "build" feature doesn't give me the same feeling.

Looking at the recent discussion, I'm inclined to keep my expectations pretty low - not in the sense that KHIV is going to be bad, but more in the sense that I'm not expecting changes to the formula.

We'll probably get 2-3 hours with Sora in Quadratum, then he meets up with Donald + Goofy, they'll spend the next 20-30 hours in Disney world with some interstitial scenes of Main Plot, final original world, ending.

I'm not expecting much involvement from the cast from the older games beyond cameos, tbh. Maybe some stuff from Ventus. I'd honestly be surprised if Donald and Goofy appeared in Quadratum or if they stayed behind whenever the player went there ala the Final World in KH3.

Maybe Quadratum will be our new hub world? I think it‘d be really cool if we could keep coming back to Sora‘s apartment. Random
thought but it would be ADORABLE if we could decorate it just a little bit as we complete the story — like souvenirs from the different worlds. That‘d be so cool! I wish there was a little fun mechanic like that. I liked that 0.2 had the wardrobe mechanic for example

the most important question: why did they release a random screenshot of a phone?

Quadratum is definitely a hub world, and I'm kind of glad we're starting off in a hub world since KH3 started off in Olympus and Twilight Town was downsized. But I'm not really expecting there to be a huge break in the formula, more so we'll be spending plenty of time in Quad closer to how KH2 worked with Hollow Bastion rather than the sin that was KH3 Twilight Town.

(And I'm grateful for that, KH3 disrespected the heck out of Twilight Town.)

Ready to get spooky?



I hope it’s a wind/ghost phone, but it would be funny if it was something mundane, like it’s the phone Sora gets calls from his pizza restaurant manager and needs to run out and deliver food whenever he gets a call.

One of my concerns with Quadratum is there not being much depth to it for interesting exploration. Too many open world city games fall into that trap of creating a sprawling city, but you can’t go inside anywhere unless it’s a mission or something. This was my issue with San Fransokyo in KH3 in particular. Running around that world, I never felt like I was going anywhere of significance. Aside from Sora’s apartment which is already confirmed, I want to go inside shops, restaurants, gov’t facilities hiding secret labs experimenting on humans and Heartless… Basic stuff.

I know the trailer has some indoor shots, so hopefully we’ll be able to freely explore all that and more. Versus XIII was originally meant to have some indoor locations in Insomnia too, so I’m hoping those ideas will carry over to KH4.

Oh and I want a Quadratum-Behemoth fight in the subway tunnels at some point!

KH4 may have one of my favorite plots of the franchise if they do things right. I love what we know about Quadratum so far and the FF Versus 13 vibes that gives me.

Hopefully they don't screw up and this time the cutscenes and writing are better.

Okay, so, crackpot theory time:

Going by the tradition of phones that can call the dead, Sora is gonna somehow be able to use that phone to communicate with his friends outside Quadratum, and that’s how we switch over to playing as characters in that Worldline.

…and yes, this me drinking hopium for a playable Kairi in KH4.

I’m replaying KH3 right now and one of the things I’m most excited for with KH4 is honestly the reduction in load times. Even playing on PS5, it’s rough to constantly get hit with lengthy load screens (especially when you die a lot on Critical.)

With the talk of the wind phone, how cool will it be if Sora picks up the phone, hears Mickey’s inner voice, and the scene seamlessly transitions to Mickey in Scala and directly into gameplay? No load screens whatsoever. I think KH3 was held back from its full vision by technical factors, so I can’t wait to see how they execute their ideas for KH4 now that the technical ceiling has been raised.

I am curious how big Quadratum will be. Sora's room in the trailer wasn't even in Shibuya so how much part of tokyo will it cover?
Will it actually be open world?

I feel confident in saying kingdom hearts 4 will get a trailer next month at summer game fest. Mainly, because the plan for missing link was always to release it in warmer weather preferable the summer time and now that it's been cancelled. I believe square will compensate by giving us a new Kh4 trailer.

I don’t think they would go beyond Shibuya and Shinjuku. There is A LOT between those wards.

It’ll be interesting to see how they utilize these locations and what they choose to give players access to. Gosh, am I a loser for wanting Sora to be able to get on the train? Like not even like walk to the station, but to actually go into the stations and walk around and grab food?

Sorry, I’m getting a little lost in my memories of Tokyo and taking the train xD

Kabuki-cho/Kamurocho. Bring it in.

You know, I’m wondering if KH4’s release approaching could have been a factor in ML’s cancellation. Maybe it was getting to the point where the changes they needed to make it work would put the release too close to KH4. So there just wasn’t a point to continue with it as they’d either have to delay KH4 or release ML sometime after it.

Considering ML was supposed to be released like a year ago and lead up to KH4 it doesn't surprise me that they scrapped the entire damn thing. I'd rather they focus on KH4 than trying to make a promotional tie-in to a GPS gacha game that most of the fandom wouldn't even play.

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Makes me wonder if this had more validity than people thought.

Yeah I am team 2006.
The question is, when will they start their marketing cycle, This summer or this winter?

I'm still hoping they show us a trailer sometime this summer. Come on Square it's time.

I definitely do think there is a non-zero chance of us seeing KH4 again sometime this year. At the moment, I'm not betting on SGF, only because the statement of "We will show more when the time is right" seems to suggest this. As SGF is less than a month away, I feel like Square would have just said so at this point. But of course, as I'd said before, I'll gladly take being proven wrong. As Kid Ryan said a bit ago, there is still events like TGS, The Game Awards, and Jump Festa, but as we've seen, Square doesn't really need events to show off news, as they could either drop an update randomly, or at a State of Play. So while maybe we may not see something this summer, I don't think it's out of the question for us to see KH4 again this year.

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doubt it's anything but...

I'm bettin' on nothin' special, but who knows really?

Still thinkin' on how that February 4chan ML post may have been right after all. That perhaps despite how the GPS function worked in the betas, it may have been a lot more than we thought for the devs and the game's development really was a mess.

I should mention that the last franchise I know of that had two "secret" art things was Persona and it turned out to be a damn Persona 4 ad with Igor and "all protags" anniversary art while people were incredibly certain it'd be P6

Still won't stop the KH youtubers from taking those secret arts and squeezing content from them, because they're totally going to be important for KH4 you guys!

Shame we gotta wait til the end of August to know what they are

I love King Micky and Wizdom Form

That 4chan post seems pretty spot on tbh. The best thing about it is that it says that KH4 development is doing fine, which is great news.

Would be amazing if they announce native port of the HD collection+3 on Switch + a brand new KH4 trailer this summer.

I already have the 1.5/2.5 collection and KH3 on my PS5 and Steam Deck, am I really going to buy Switch 2 Native KH ports if they happen?... Of course I am!

Can we get a native PS5 port with all of the additions added to the Steam version please ?

I’m not above port betting. I will spend money on another version of KH lol

The screenshots I feel are from an older build of kingdom hearts 4 and their waiting for the next trailer to show us all the new stuff. My personal opinion is that since ML was supposed to release in the summer/warmer weather. We might actually have a chance to see Kh4 really soon at summer game fest perhaps as a compromise since ML was cancelled. What do you all think?

Good lord see this is why I don't like Quadratum Sora, Unreal models can be so ugly...

The models aren’t the issue, either, but the global lighting. I don’t think this is something SE is looking to resolve without some additional second party lighting tools.

Q3 2026 as a potential release date is still better than a 2027 or 2028 release date and would align with average game development times these days, plus as far as we know KH4 hasn't been suffering delays like KH3 did with their engine swap. So it still aligns pretty well.

Part of me wants this game to release already but if it's set for Q3 2026 I'll at least have time to save up for a more powerful PC by then.

The screenshots look amazing. I love the look of the Mickey playable section in Scala ad Caelum's library. It makes me wish that we got to explore Radiant Garden more in KH3 to see things like the library in better detail.

I think it would be really interesting to have 2 hub worlds: Quadratum for Sora and Scala ad Caelum for Mickey/Donald/Goofy (and maybe the rest of the Guardians of Light). Quadratum will obviously be the larger world, but it would be a change of pace to have that opportunity to switch characters and explore the hub worlds. I also think having Scala and Quadratum be connected somehow would be cool.

I think that releasing in January 2026 would be the best time. If they release mid-2026, it would be a bad idea because people will be all over GTA VI. If they want to release 2026, it's either early or late like December. Also January 2026 would be 7 years after KH3... which would be a nice reference to the "seven black pieces" at the end of KH3.

Anyway, seeing as the marketing is going to begin soon, I was wondering what you all prefer? It's actually pretty unprecedented for a KH game: the main story is unclear AND the use of DISNEY worlds is unclear. Would you prefer if they market solely the DISNEY worlds and keep the main story vague or hype up more the main story and show bits of the DISNEY worlds/elements (basically just confirming which ones will be included)?

If theres anything I would prefer from KH4 trailers, it's that they try to be a little bit lighter on the spoilers this time. Maybe have a trailer focused on Quadratum of course, maybe finally reveal Star Wars, or focus on a Disney world to show the basic combat, maybe show Sora reuniting with Donald and Goofy as a callback to KH1, some light hints on what Mickey is doing, or Yozora, and just focus on combat with little focus on the story.


Please no more Dark Aqua repeats from trailers.

we've had so many KH games at this point, I'd like them to specifically advertise this particular title's combat and how it sets itself apart as a game. KH3's big addition was scale and giant attacks... I should hope KH4 has its own gameplay identity it wants to carve out.

Curious how marketing for this game will be. This feels like it will be the first AAA game coming out since the new CEO's structure change. Rebirth technically came out after he became the CEO but I feel marketing cycle for that game was probably set before he got to do stuff.

I fully expect an individual reveal for each Disney world simply because of how much hype they generate. And there definitely won’t be any kept secret as that would cause them to miss out on a potential target audience.

I just hope like Launchpad mentioned previously that they don’t follow the people standing and talking -> gameplay -> more people standing and talking format for the trailers. I actually see the first trailer as a good sign as it’s structured nicely with only a little in context dialogue from Strelitzia plus the narration. Besides that, it’s focused on the visuals and the action. I hope they carry that approach through the rest of the marketing.

Yeah lots of KH3 trailers were lackluster in terms of trailer composition/quality outside of some big ones.

The reveal KH4 trailer was great in terms of material they had. I hope it's the standard going forward.

Also the cutscenes in that trailer was really good compared to the past so I am hopefully the cutscenes in KH4 will be a big step up from KH3...

I was thinking about how Mickey doesn’t have a Magic or Item slot. If that isn’t just a placeholder, maybe he does have some other commands but only through the L1 shortcut menu. I always used the shortcuts for the other playable characters in KH3 and honestly can’t remember if I ever even looked at their full command options. So maybe they streamlined it?

It’d be cool if he actually had some spells he could use for platforming/puzzle elements. Like casting Stop to freeze a spinning gear to cross a gap. I miss the KH1 days where there were actually some non-combat uses for magic.

The fact that there isn't Health Bar UI for Mickey in the screenshot probably means there isn't any combat, and attack command is just attacking certain objects to interact in the map.

i'm gonna be honest, I hate that of all the screenshots they chose, they chose to spoil a playable character. imagine the impact of finding out you could play mickey again.

The optimum KH trailer has the theme song playing in the background with the voice-over clips of whichever conversation they reallyyyy wanna show against interspersed gameplay and set-piece cutscene footage. That's literally all it'll take, I don't know why they've forgotten how to market this series

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If you know Nate the Hate, maybe some of you can have more hope in the SGF.

Show me Kairi gameplay in the re-reveal trailer please

From a narrative standpoint, it'd be a good way to have a tutorial, we get to see Kairi training with Aqua and learn the controls. Then we jump to Sora in Quadratum, meeting Strelitzia and then the Darkside appears which is our first boss fight.

...So if KH4 isn't considered high expectation then what IS considered high expectations by Nate. Chrono Trigger remake?

If Nate the Hate considers stuff like KH4 to be of low expectation, then I'm def betting on it showing up.

I'm assuming they actually were waiting for ML to come out before starting any sort of marketing on KH4, but now that's cancelled, there's no need anymore.

Still, it's a shame the game had to be canned at all. Regardless of it being mobile gacha crap, the story it was supposed to tell went down with it. Not to mention it being the third time to our knowledge that Nomura was unable to tell a story cuz of cancellation.

I'm still not going to put all my eggs in the SGF basket. However, if they were waiting for ML to release and then market KH4, and with ML now being canceled, I hope that means they are focusing more on the story KH4 is going to tell and that ML is more of a light reference instead of a focal point.

Thinking about it, Sora had a unique animation when standing on a sparkle action flow environment. They probably didn't want to have to create a new animation for Mickey to do the same when we can just make him jump lol.