It has been twenty years since the release of Kingdom Hearts for the
Playstation 2 by Square Enix, in collaboration with Disney. Today, the development company, which is synonymous with the JRPG genre, announced three new titles in the popular franchise to the delight of fans worldwide. There are two mobile titles and one wider release in the works.
First from
Square Enix is a long-awaited final chapter to the Kindom Hearts Dark Road series. Titled Dark Road, the game is expected to release in August 2022. The trailer for the project looks to follow a similar art style to previous installments in the Dark Road series. This does give the game a more cutesy look, while still retaining much of the Disney influence. The trailer also implies that a catastrophic event eliminates many of the Keyblade wielders, thus it seems up to you to fight off the Darkness.
Shifting focus to mobile platforms, a 2022 beta is coming to certain regions for Kingdom Hearts Missing Link. Touted as the first "location-based" action RPG in the Kingdom Hearts Series, the developers claim that it will bring iconic virtual worlds like Scala and Caelum into the real world. It also seems to imply that there will be a co-op feature for this title and that it will have a completely original story. Square Enix is asking that you keep an eye on their social networks for Kingdom Hearts to see announcements related to this title, which is just "KingdomHearts" wherever you look.
Last, but certainly not least, there will be a continuation of Sora's story, the seminal character from Super Smash Bros. Continuing the main Kingdom Hearts timeline is Kingdom Hearts IV. The story follows the original protagonist adventures and fights against the Darkness. The trailer shows some impressive-looking functionality for some active combat and world traversal. Sora leaps through what looks like a major city, while advancing against a gargantuan Darkness enemy.
Kingdom Hearts has also had numerous remasters and re-releases recently, for multiple modern consoles and even the PC. The history of Kingdom Hearts is a rather interesting one in that the first game started development without a
Disney license. Square Enix approached Disney fairly late in development with Mickey placed as a main character in the story. Disney loved it, thus starting a 20-year development partnership that currently includes 21 different games. Nineteen of those games are in the Kingdom Hearts series, which will soon grow to 22 games. We are admittedly pretty excited about the announcement, and look forward to fighting the Darkness with Sora, Donald, and Goofy again soon. You can read Square Enix's
announcement here.
