A few weeks back, Tetsuya Nomura and his co-director, Tai Yasue, attended Disney’s D23 conference, which gave us a new look at Kingdom Hearts 4, its new world, Coco, plus a Disney+ anime reveal.
While those reveals were nice, the pair also spoke with Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu and shared more details about the late-2027 game. Speaking to Tai Yasue, he said the script is almost twice as long as Kingdom Hearts 3‘s and that he wanted to include even more but decided against it.
Regarding the voiced lines, the Japanese actors have apparently finished recording, and the English voice actors are about 60-70 percent through. So, it sounds like things are on schedule and the release window remains unchanged. However, Nomura did note that recording Kingdom Hearts 3 was much more difficult.
The article also explains why Coco was chosen and why it was revealed first—primarily because it uses themes of death and life, and because Quadratum is a world of death from Sora’s viewpoint while also resembling modern Tokyo. The Land of the Dead was chosen early on because of its themes, and it makes sense from what we’ve seen so far.
Yasue says that the new location will be much larger and add more verticality. We saw Sora moving across the world as he sped along and fought Heartless alongside Miguel and Héctor, which shows the world seems much bigger than older titles. If the decision is to give us bigger worlds but fewer of them, that could be worth losing a world or two, especially if they add filler or nothing else to the experience. Kingdom Hearts 3 is a perfect example of a game that really did nothing until the last few hours, and many of the worlds you visited felt like filler.
The Famitsu interview also had Nomura say that we’ll learn more about Vali and Sigurd, two characters from the χ mobile games that some may have missed. He even teased that he considers Kingdom Hearts 4 a χ game.
We’ll also learn more about the Dandelions and how they fit into the larger story of Kingdom Hearts 4. For those unfamiliar with the Dandelions, they were a secret group of Keyblade wielders who were chosen by Master Ava to continue on after the Keyblade War ended. We often saw them in the mobile games. Nomura said we’ll see members of the group serving in the government in Quadratum.
In the interview with Famitsu, Nomura also revealed that Sigurd is “quite popular” with the development team and even appeared in Nomura’s 20th anniversary sketch in a hidden message. We also learn he’s one of a kind and unlike any other character seen in the series.
Fans can dive into the series later this year when Kingdom Hearts Collection [I ~ III] launches for Xbox Series, PlayStation 5, and Switch on October 8, 2026.
