Amazon are sometimes an unexpected source of leaks for game publishers, as the store occasionally makes changes to listings for yet unreleased games, revealing the developer or publisher’s intentions before they were supposed to. Currently, the listing for “Kingdom Hearts 3” at the popular website has a release date of December 31 set, and the price of the game was just lowered to $40.99 from $59.99 as a pre-order promotion. The discount was brief – it only lasted one day – but many players were apparently able to get their own discounted copy, judging by discussions at various online messaging boards.
The game has been in development for quite a long time – it’s been around ten years at this point – and many players have been questioning what they’re about to get in terms of gameplay experience. The new title is going to feature various characters, both old and new, and Square Enix have been going crazy adding various characters from Disney’s portfolio, including utilizing the fact that they now have access to “Star Wars” intellectual property, and there have been reports about Darth Vader being present in the new game, as well as Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen”. Iron Man has also been rumored several times – but at this point, it’s not known whether any of these characters will actually appear in the new game, or if those are just baseless rumors.
The developers themselves have said that they’re aiming for a lot of variety, on the other hand. Tai Yatsue said that the design of the game is being approached with the idea that players should never have to experience the exact same type of world, so they’ll offer different categories to choose from. That way, they’re hoping to significantly increase the longevity and replay potential of the game.
Which is certainly refreshing news, as the trend for many developers seems to be the exact opposite lately. The idea with many companies seems to be to try and make a game as short as possible, so that players would be eager to get the next one, or pay for additional content in the form of DLC. If a game has extra replay potential, these marketing strategies stop being so viable.
So far, there have been lots of good indicators for the future of “Kingdom Hearts 3” – all it takes now is for Square Enix to release an actually solid, polished game. They have a huge fan base that has been patiently waiting for them, so they won’t even have to put a lot of effort into the game’s marketing to make its name known, they just have to keep fans supplied with fresh new information.