The crossover role-playing game “Kingdom Hearts 3” is confirmed to be in thick of development when Steve Burton, the voice actor for the character Cloud in the role-playing game “Final Fantasy VII,” tweeted on March 5 that he will be doing some work for the other highly-anticipated Square Enix game.
Having been announced as early as the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2013, it is obvious that Square Enix has busied itself working on the development of “Kingdom Hearts 3.”
However, since much of the focus of the game developer has been on the widely-anticipated role-playing game “Final Fantasy XV” over the past couple of months as it is due for release this year on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, development of the “Kingdom Hearts 3” has been intentionally slowed down and its release date pushed back.
Now that “Final Fantasy XV” is pretty much set for release late this year, Square Enix has been focusing more on the development of “Kingdom Hearts 3.”
The tweet of Steve Burton only confirmed that Square Enix is obviously past the midpoint in the development of “Kingdom Hearts 3” as it is now focusing on laying down voices on the game’s characters, notes the Parent Herald.
This also means that the gameplay and the plotline of the crossover role-playing game are pretty much done and the voice-laying means that “Kingdom Hearts 3” is already in the final phase or finishing touches of its continued development.
Burton made the disclosure on Twitter when one of his followers asked him if he will be involved in the next iteration of the “Kingdom Hearts” video game franchise.
The voice actor responded by saying that he will indeed be doing something for the game in a few weeks and that he would let his followers know by then, details the Gospel Herald.
Likely release date
While Amazon has posted late last year that “Kingdom Hearts 3” will be shipped on December 30, 2016, critics and gamers, later on, deduced that it was merely a placeholder date for the American online retail giant.
However, basing also on the same placeholder date, it is almost sure that the game would come out on the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 next year, although no confirmation has been made or announced by Square Enix as of this time.
It is also unlikely for the Japanese game developer to release “Kingdom Hearts 3” this year because “Final Fantasy XV” has already been confirmed to take centerstage this year.
For sure, the Japanese game developer does not want two of its popular titles to cross each other out in the market this year that is why it decided to defer the launching of the other. Thus, “Kingdom Hearts 3” simply made way for “Final Fantasy XV” this year.
Good working relationship with Disney
There were also rumors that went around lately citing that Square Enix has a not-so-good working relationship with Disney and it was the main reason why the release of “Kingdom Hearts 3” was delayed.
Disney owns the intellectual property rights of the Disney characters and worlds that are featured in the “Kingdom Hearts” franchise.
But those rumors were debunked straight up by “Kingdom Hearts” creator Tetsuya Nomura when he said that Disney is not inhibiting anything or keeping Square Enix from doing what it wants in the game.
He explained that sometimes when they are writing the story, Disney asks them to give it a lighter tone or a happier ending because that is typical of the company but they have not stopped the Square Enix development team from doing anything at all to the game.