The Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Showcase aired on April 10 and included announcements for three new games in the franchise. Two mobile games, Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link and Kingdom Hearts Dark Road were revealed, along with the next mainline entry in the franchise, Kingdom Hearts 4.
As should be expected of anything Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 4‘s trailer is incredibly vague. Players will still fill the now-normal-sized shoes of Sora, the franchise’s longtime protagonist, as he continues his fight against Organization XIII. The trailer itself shows off Quadratum, one of the game’s worlds. Unlike other worlds players have visited throughout the franchise though, Quadratum is a photorealistic modern-day city filled with humans instead of Disney characters.
Disney’s characters will still show up in the game though, with Sora’s sidekicks, Donald and Goofy, being shown at the end of the trailer.
In the trailer itself, Sora fights what appears to be a Darkside, a massive Heartless that has appeared throughout the franchise. Along with some fancy movement techniques that let him run up walls and fling himself off poles, Sora will also seemingly have some kind of grappling hook in Kingdom Hearts 4.
Alongside Kingdom Hearts 4, Square Enix showed off Kingdom Hearts Dark Road and Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link. The former, set to launch in August, is similar to other mobile games in the franchise, sporting card-based battles and a cartoon aesthetic. Missing-Link is a departure from that norm, featuring 3D environments and fights against heartless, complete with assists from Donald and Goofy. It’s not clear who this game’s main character is or where it fits into the franchise’s overarching story, but players will be able to find out during a closed beta test that’s set to launch sometime this year.
A release window for Kingdom Hearts 4 was not sevealed.