Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer teases Hercules and Elemental worlds, but I wish it had included a release date

• After four years, we finally get a second Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer
• Disney characters were few and far between, but two worlds were teased
• We also didn't get a release date

It’s tough being a Kingdom Hearts fan. The series is an all-time great, but if its platform-hopping origins weren’t frustrating enough — with entries exclusive to different consoles and even different regions for a while — we must now face the fact that Square Enix loves taking its time between entries, and between a new game’s announcement and release.

Kingdom Hearts 3 was first showcased around five and a half years before its release, and it seemed Kingdom Hearts 4 might take just as long between merely its first and second trailers. That is, until we got a brand new look at the game at Nintendo Direct, saving this year’s Summer Game Fest event for me just as I had conceded the Disney meets Final Fantasy crossover would be absent yet again.

The minute and a half of footage blended combat gameplay with cutscenes of black robe-clad figures, protagonist Sora facing off against a Heartless behemoth on the streets of Tokyo, and a few new and familiar faces — including several from Kingdom Hearts’ now-defunct mobile and browser games.

Despite these more obscure inclusions, Square has said KH4 is meant as a jumping-on point for the series, with the game’s director, Tetsuya Nomura, describing the KH3 ending in a interview as a “reset” — one which “should make it even easier for newcomers to join the story starting from KH4.”

Disney who?

I’m not convinced the latest trailer supports Nomura’s claims, though, as a long-time fan who has loved the series’ weird spin-offs, I’m not complaining.

The one other interesting detail of the trailer for me is how short it is on Disney characters. We only get the briefest glimpse of Donald and Goofy surrounded by blue flames.

Though we did get hints at two possible Disney worlds we’ll get to visit in some capacity. The first comes from those blue flames, which strongly hint at the return of Hades, the god of the underworld, from Hercules. Hercules’s world has appeared in almost every entry in the series so far, so its inclusion in 4 makes plenty of sense.

Further, while Sora’s fate at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 is a little strange, it seems he has died in a way, so a god of death would likely be involved in his friend’s quest to find him. Plus, Hades’ voice actor has since teased his involvement online, saying “I might have a little bit of inside knowledge on this” and sharing the latest trailer.

The other hint comes from Sora’s keyblade — a swirl of fire and water combined into one weapon. While we don’t get the best look at it while it’s swung around in combat, this feels like a clear reference to 2023’s Elemental, especially as the keyblade creates a flower effect when it hits enemies, which looks a little bit like the film’s vivisteria flowers.

Interestingly, Sora has this keyblade while battling in the realistic version of Tokyo, suggesting he’ll be world-hopping while still trapped in this alternate reality — one which didn’t experience the visceral conflict of light and darkness before his arrival, we learn in this new clip.

One missing detail

The only thing missing is a release date or even a release year. After four years since it was first teased, you’d hope Square Enix would be able to give us some kind of timeline for this game’s release.

My guess is sometime in late 2027 at the earliest, maybe early 2028. That’s based on a new Kingdom Hearts collection that is landing this October, and that we have the final part of the Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy dropping in Spring next year (that’ll be sometime in March through May).

This is certainly frustrating. I can’t tell you how desperate I am to jump back into the Kingdom Hearts world, but hopefully the wait will be worth it.

Admittedly, this trailer makes me a little concerned. Perhaps it’s the wide open space of Tokyo’s streets, but the combat felt a little sparse, and something seemed a little off about Sora’s fight against the giant Heartless. Footage, so perhaps things will change come Kingdom Hearts 4’s eventual full release.

At least we found out it’ll be yet another multi-platform launch across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PC, and the Nintendo Switch 2.

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