Kingdom Hearts III Co-Director talks combat and why the game was missing from E3 2016

Kingdom Hearts III has attained a sort of mythical status over the past decade. The last official entry came out all the way back in 2006, and while the series has seen numerous spin-offs on portable devices over the years, none of them have amassed the storm of hype and anticipation that surrounds Kingdom Hearts III. After being nothing but hopes and dreams until its unveiling at E3 2013, Kingdom Hearts III has sunk into the background over the years causing fans to raise an eyebrow (accompanied by massive internet forum panic).

The game's Co-Director, Tai Yasue talked with GamesBeat about what Kingdom Hearts III was looking to do with its battle system as well as explain why the game was notably absent from E3 2016.

On the battle system he said:

"In Kingdom Hearts III and 0.2 we wanted to enhance this system for the next generation. Using magical spells, we wanted the environments and enemies to react in a meaningful way. It doesn’t just explode. It lingers on afterward. If you shoot a Blizzard, for example, it creates a place where you can skate on the ground. We wanted the magic to dynamically interact with the environments."

That sounds pretty cool and certainly opens up possibilities for emergent gameplay. One of the things I personally found somewhat limiting with previous Kingdom Hearts entries was that a lot of the games' major battlefields were simply circles that were cut off by the cliched "magical barrier." If Square Enix is truly building a next-gen Kingdom Hearts experience, making your magical spells have context outside of battle is a great way of doing that.

On E3 2016, Yasue said:

"It was a difficult decision for us. We want to share as much as possible. We’re excited about Kingdom Hearts III. But II.8 we’re releasing globally at the beginning of December. We wanted to concentrate on that first. We want what’s best for the moment. We’re currently making III and 2.8 at the same time, but we wanted to concentrate on 2.8 right now."

Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, other than being quite a mouthful of a title, is an HD Remaster collection of the 3DS game, Dream Drop Distance, and the PSP game, Birth By Sleep. It would also stand to reason that Square Enix is focusing heavily on the release of Final Fantasy XV, that it wouldn't make much sense to release two massive (and legendary) franchises at the same time.

We just hope that all works out in the end for Kingdom Hearts III.

Source: [VentureBeat]