Final Fantasy character designer and Kingdom Hearts creator Tetsuya Nomura recently unveiled his contribution to Square Enix and DC Comic’s Variant Play Arts Kai figurine line, but only today revealed that the design traces back to a canned video game project.
“Many Years ago, I worked on a different project and the concept and idea was kind of already there,” Nomura told Siliconera. “Unfortunately, that project didn’t pan out and it never saw the light of day. When the merchandise team started expanding into the DC Comics Variant figures, they approached me and said, ‘We remember you drew a sort of Batman design back then. Would you be able to share that with us?’”
“[That project] was game-related,” he continued. “It didn’t even start development as a project, it was just concept and ideas, not a full game.” However, Nomura added, those early designs went on to influence the characters and armor of Kingdom Hearts.