Tetsuya Nomura talks Kingdom Hearts 3

“But what about Kingdom Hearts 3?” has been an oft repeated question after every single game conference for the last 10 years. And with good reason, combining the Disney worlds with Final Fantasy was a no duh money maker for Square Enix and the franchise and its spin-offs have been a mainstay and gateway drug for gamers for years.

With a proper third entry to the series underworks, but few facts coming out, fans have been chomping at the bit and arguing over what will actually be included in such an anticipated sequel. The game’s director, Tetsuya Nomura, sat down in an interview recently to expand the pool of actual facts for the current project.

“For the most part we’ve established the ground foundations, like the basic systems and mechanics of what’s going to go in the game. Development of that is pretty much close to complete. But of course, since this is an HD title, it’s now building the resources, and development of the ‘mass’ elements of it, like mass production of the areas and the actual things that are going into the game. Other elements, including the mini-games and other various smaller items; their progress is very varied… some of them are polished and very close to final state, but at the same time some elements are still in the planning phases and I haven’t laid out the groundwork yet. But the basic structure of what’s going to go in the game is set, it’s now a matter of mass production of the different elements.”

He also promised various was of getting players new to the franchise up to snuff on the goings-on in the Kingdom Hearts worlds if this is their first introduction as well as a promise of favorite Disney classics such as The Lion King, “And then I’ll flesh it out to make sure it fits into the world of Kingdom Hearts. Now, in terms of which world I prefer – of course, I’ve been saying this for a while now but it’s The Pride Lands, which is the Lion King world. That’s been my long-time favourite. This is one of the only worlds where Sora actually turns into a four-legged lion.”