Kingdom Hearts 4 was surprise-revealed yesterday during a 20th Anniversary announcement trailer for the series, which is where Square Enix also revealed that it was developing Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, a new mobile game for the franchise.
The reveal of Kingdom Hearts was quite extensive and you can read Game Informer’s full breakdown of it here, but one thing that couldn’t go unnoticed was the new visual style. Featuring a much more realistic look, especially compared to the cartoony nature of previous Kingdom Hearts games, this new sequel looks beautiful.
Set in the Tokyo-like Quadratum, this trailer shows Sora waking up in an apartment before he charges after a massive heartless causing chaos in the inner city. We see some shots of what appear to be actual gameplay and now, we know this reveal was running in real-time in Unreal Engine 4 thanks to a new report from Famitsu, as translated by Video Games Chronicle. Unreal Engine 4 looks great but after last week’s announcement that Unreal Engine 5 is now available to all, fans were wondering if Kingdom Hearts 4 would be developed in this new engine.
It turns out it will be, according to Famitsu’s report.
“The full game will be made with Unreal Engine 5, and the quality of lighting and details will be several levels higher,” according to Famitsu.
The publication also claims that Kingdom Hearts 4 is being developed by Square Enix’s Osaka studio, which is the same team behind Kingdom Hearts 3, under the lead of co-director Yasushi Yasue, as translated by VGC.
During the live 20th Anniversary event, which took place in Japan, Kingdom Hearts franchise director Tetsuya Nomura reportedly revealed that he considered making a real Verum Rex video game, which itself is a video game in the Toy Story world of Kingdom Hearts 3, before he decided to make Kingdom Hearts 4. Torn between a Verum Rex game and a new Kingdom Hearts, Nomura chose the latter because he’d be too worried about Sora otherwise. He also reportedly settled on Kingdom Hearts 4 because developing both would be too difficult.
While waiting to one day see what Kingdom Hearts 4 looks like in Unreal Engine 5, read Game Informer’s Kingdom Hearts 4 reveal trailer breakdown, and then check out everything we know about Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link. After that, check out this theory that the Forest Moon of Endor from Star Wars is in the Kingdom Hearts 4 reveal trailer.
[Source: Famitsu via Video Games Chronicle]
Are you excited for Kingdom Hearts 4? Let us know which worlds you hope to visit in it in the comments below!
