Square Enix officially revealed that
Kingdom Hearts 3 will be finally released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 29, 2019, at E3 2019. The fact that this upcoming action-RPG is hitting stores around the globe in less than a month is definitely good news, but it doesn’t change that
KH3 was actually announced five and a half years ago at E3 2015 and has seen a multitude of delays ever since.
One of the main reasons why
KH3 was delayed so many times was Square Enix’s unexpected decision to switch from their in-house Luminous Engine (that did a fine job powering
Final Fantasy XV) to Epic's vastly more popular (and easier to learn and use proficiently) Unreal Engine 4, that is also the base of many Square Enix games nowadays, including
Dragon Quest XI and
Final Fantasy VII Remake.
According to
KH3 Director Tetsuya Nomura, it wasn't his or his team's idea. “
We had our own company reasons, essentially,” Nomura said while speaking about the engine switch in EDGE’s February 2019 issue. “
It wasn’t something that we had anything to do with, it was decided by higher ups.”
“
It was a whole year that we had to kind of rewind and restart,” he further explained. “
As a dev tool, UE4 is kind of an all-in-one, it’s got all of the stuff that is needed in it, it’s used around the world, and we also got really great support from Epic. They were very helpful through the entire process.”
In Nomura's opinion, the fact that the game's development team hadn’t been involved in the development of Square’s in-house engine in any capacity also factored in the diction to use UE4. ;“
It would have been a different story if the team making Luminous had been members of the Kingdom Hearts team,” he said. “
But they were a different team, so that did make things a bit more difficult.”
In
Kingdom Hearts 3, the player will have a unique opportunity to explore selected worlds from Square Enix's video games and Disney's live-action and animated movies, including the fantastic universes of
Hercules, Winnie the Pooh, Tangled, Frozen, Pirate of the Caribbean, Toy Story, and even
Big Hero 6.
Kingdom Hearts is the story of Light overcoming Darkness with the power of Friendship. Kingdom Hearts is a series of action role-playing games developed and published by Square Enix under the direction of Tetsuya Nomura. The series is a collaboration between Square Enix and Disney. Kingdom Hearts follows the main protagonist Sora, a Keyblade wielder, as he travels to many Disney worlds with Donald and Goofy to stop the Heartless invasion by sealing each world’s keyhole and restore peace to the realms.
Kingdom Hearts III will be available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 29, 2019.