The “Kingdom Hearts” franchise is a bit complex to follow, even for some of its more dedicated fans, as the studio behind the games has branched them out across several different installments, and the naming convention certainly doesn’t make things any more intuitive. And yet, fans have come to terms with the fact that “Kingdom Hearts” games can be a bit oddly named and don’t seem to mind that as long as the gameplay lives up to their expectations.
“Kingdom Hearts 3” has been in development for a while, and there is also “Kingdom Hearts 2.8” in development which takes the franchise in a different direction in terms of the kinds of content that it offers. The developers of the “Kingdom Hearts” games love these fractional version numbers, and they’ve even tried to explain the intricate meaning behind them at one point, but fans didn’t seem very impressed with the explanation they got.
Nevertheless, it looks like the two new games are going to share a little more than their names, and we’re possibly going to see some gameplay mechanics carried over from one game to the other. It’s not entirely clear which mechanics this covers, but it sounds like “Kingdom Hearts 3” could be quite similar to “Kingdom Hearts 2.8” in some aspects of its gameplay, and that would be interesting to see if the two games offer an otherwise different approach to their stories.
From what we’ve been able to tell from the developers, it sounds like they are trying to get people to experience their new gameplay changes regardless of what game they decide to invest in, so they want to preserve the tightly knit nature of the community which we’ve known it for so far.
According to some publications, this move might also have a strong marketing value, as it will help promote one title to fans interested in the other. Because of this, we could possibly see more interest in “Kingdom Hearts 2.8” from those who’ve been waiting for “Kingdom Hearts 3” until now, and vice versa. That would certainly be a good development as “Kingdom Hearts 2.8” doesn’t seem to be enjoying the same level of popularity, and it could probably use the boost with fans of the franchise.
It’s probably easy to understand why it’s more popular with newcomers to the franchise and not its older fans, as it’s a remastering of previous titles and features mostly content that gamers have already seen in one form or another, although in an improved state. At the same time, the game has been doing a good job at attracting new people to the franchise as it could serve as a good option for stepping in at a later stage.
We’ll have to wait and see how both titles perform on the market, but we expect that “Kingdom Hearts 3” alone is going to enjoy a lot of popularity and bring strong profits for the studio. And that would definitely be a great development considering how long fans have been waiting to see that sequel.
Some long-term followers of the franchise are also getting seemingly agitated with the pace of its development, and hopefully Square Enix aren’t going to prolong the sequel too much at this point, as this could result in a serious loss of popularity for the studio. This is a very important franchise in gaming and it would be a shame to see it losing its core fans because of a delay.