News about “Kingdom Hearts 3” has been somewhat mixed lately, and it looks like fans will have to arm themselves with a lot of patience. While the game is apparently going to come with an expanded world and cast, it will take a while before it’s ready for the market, and those who were hoping to get their hands on it in the coming months will be left disappointed.
The “Kingdom Hearts” franchise was affected significantly by Disney’s involvement, featuring various characters from the studio’s own IPs. And since the company recently acquired the rights to the famous “Star Wars” franchise, there have been reports that certain characters from the latest film are going to be added to “Kingdom Hearts 3”.
More specifically, we’ve seen reports of Han Solo and Chewbacca, and there will be a few new additions from Marvel’s side as well. It’s possible that even more will be added to the game eventually, as it looks like its development is going to take quite a long time at this point. Plus, Disney will keep releasing more content related to their IPs in the meantime, creating even more potential material.
Quinton Flynn, the voice actor behind Axel, recently claimed that he hasn’t been contacted for work on “Kingdom Hearts 3” yet. For many, that’s a worrying sign – if Disney haven’t even approached the actor at this stage, how far along are they in the game’s development in reality?
Some gamers have pointed out that the reports don’t necessarily have to worry anyone. In many games, voice work can be safely recorded at the end of the development cycle as it’s not required to build any other component of the game. In fact, in most cases it actually makes sense to put this part off until the end, as the script can usually change a few times during the course of development.
This means that the current state of “Kingdom Hearts 3” is mostly unknown for us. It’s possible that Square Enix are actually quite far into its development, but it’s just as likely that they are lagging behind and will need more time to implement all of their ideas properly. There might also be problems behind the scenes that we aren’t aware of, but hopefully nothing major has come up in the development yet.
On the other hand, we’ve also heard reports that other voice characters have been called in for work, including Jim Cummings, which makes the situation even more complicated. According to some, it could make sense to record the lines of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger first, as they could be more demanding in work. Still, the quietness of the studio makes it hard to make any accurate judgments of the current situation, and we will have to wait for an official word from them in the coming months.
Cummings hasn’t been the only actor called in to contribute to “Kingdom Hearts 3”, and it’s reported that other actors have actually fully completed their own work on the project. That could indicate that at least those parts of the script are complete.
A game is not designed like a movie, and the work on such a project can often be much more effectively split into parts, including separating the recordings of different voice actors. This is especially valid for characters that don’t have much interaction between them, and it’s possible that “Kingdom Hearts 3” is actually in a very advanced stage at this point.