In what can be considered either good or bad news depending on how you look at it, "Kingdom Hearts III" is confirmed to be coming to stores some time after April 2017.
The news comes straight from a recently posted fiscal year business briefing by Square Enix, which covered the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016. In addition, slides from the session show seven games to be released by March of next year, and while "Kingdom Hearts" did appear on the list, it was "2.8" and not "III."
The full slide show can be viewed HERE.
To those who had been following "Kingdom Hearts III" since it was confirmed to be in development at E3 2013, this revelation is hardly surprising. Most of "Kingdom Hearts III's" current development team was working on "Final Fantasy XV" for the past few years, so now that the latest FF is coming on Sept. 30, developers can finally focus their efforts on the highly anticipated Disney RPG.
It's worth noting that the slides only confirm that "Kingdom Hearts III" is coming after April 2017. Anytime after that is still fair game, and considering that "Final Fantasy XV" was announced as "Final Fantasy XIII Versus" as part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis series back when George W. Bush was still in office, a post-2017 release is a likely possibility.
On one hand, it's good to know that there is at least a really rough estimate on when the next installment of KH is coming. Even if we can only start looking at the latter three quarters of 2017 as the beginning of when KH is coming, it's better than what we had before, which was nothing.
On the other hand, this is bad news because fans of the series have to wait that much longer for the next installment. The last entry in the main storyline was "Kingdom Hearts II," and that was released on the PlayStation 2 in 2005. Since then, Square Enix has produced plenty of other KH titles, such as "Kingdom Hearts Coded," "Kingdom Hearts 358/2," "Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep," Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance," and most recently, "Kingdom Hearts χ." Each game had its own charm and offered something to the KH universe, but it just made the anticipation for "Kingdom Hearts III" even higher.
Luckily for fans of some of Square Enix's other established franchises, they're guaranteed to get their coveted game before April 2017. These games include:
- "Final Fantasy XV"
- "Deus Ex: Mankind Divided"
- "Dragon Quest Heroes II"
- "Rise Of The Tomb Raider"
- "SaGa Scarlet Grace"
- "World Of Final Fantasy"
"Kingdom Hearts 2.8," fully known as "Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue," is also one of the games that will be released before April 2017 and will serve as something to keep fans occupied until KH III comes around. KH 2.8, much like "Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix" and "HD 2.5 Remix" before it, is a collection of KH games and content. This one will include a remaster of "Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance" as well as a new cinematic section called ""Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover" and a previously unseen chapter from "Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep."
"Kingdom Hearts III" is in development for PS4 and Xbox One, and news regarding the game is expected during E3 2016.
