At the end of the PlayStation Experience Event, fans of “Kingdom Hearts” were left with a nice present – a confirmation for the release date of the third installment in the series. It seems that the new game is coming out in December 2015, as Amazon have listed information about the game’s pre-orders on their website. Of course, it’s not an official confirmation by the developers, but it seems good enough so far – Amazon haven’t really been mistaken often on this.
Meanwhile, various new bits of information about the game have come out, although some have been in the form of rumors so far. Nomura has stated that he has an interest in adding several more franchises to the game, namely “Star Wars” as well as some franchises from Marvel, but the procedure for that is not as simple as it seems from the outside, according to him.
The difficulty mostly comes from Disney, Nomura has stated, as the company has some specific guidelines regarding the introduction of new franchises to “Kingdom Hearts”. Nevertheless, Nomura has been in discussion with the studio and has been trying to get his ideas into the game.
In related news, rumors indicate that Iron Man might make an appearance in the game – which could indicate that Nomura has already seen some success in his negotiations. However, the scene in which the character will be featured will reportedly be a relatively minor one, and it’s not known if it means anything for any further additions of elements from similar franchises.
In the end, most of the information about the game so far are just rumors, with few pieces of official details coming from Nomura and Disney. It’s expected that more official confirmations will be made as December 2015 approaches, and of course, rumors will likely start coming in at an increased pace at some point as well. Given the popularity of the game (and the franchise as a whole), it would be a good idea for the studio to avoid letting rumors get out of control though, as this can significantly alter public opinion on the game.
The game is also expected to be noticeably more advanced in technological terms, with the introduction of Unreal Engine 4 into the workflow. A preview video has already shown off some of the new engine features being utilized by the game, and while it did look significantly better than the last installment, it was also good to see that the artists have managed to retain the game’s characteristic look and style. If the final release is close to that, it should be an amazing continuation of the series.