This past weekend at the Disney D23 Expo, Square Enix made both Disney and JRPG fanatics’ dreams come true by announcing an all-new Toy Story World for Kingdom Hearts III. Woody, Buzz, and company looked great, but fans were left with some lingering questions, such as, where does Kingdom Hearts III fit into the three (soon to be four) movie Toy Story saga? And how did this Square Enix/Pixar collaboration come together?
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Well, in a recent interview with Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, Kingdom Hearts III creator Tetsuya Nomura revealed a few more tidbits about Toy Store World (thanks to Kotaku for the translation). According to Famitsu, it sounds like Sora and Woody’s run-in is considered a canon Toy Story adventure, and will take place between the events of Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3. Originally, the story was supposed to take place directly after the original Toy Story, but that ended up changing for some reason.
As for how the collaboration came together, Nomura says he’s wanted to do a Toy Story World since the very first Kingdom Hearts, but didn’t have the technology to do it right. Nomura pitched Toy Story World to Pixar head John Lasseter during one of his trips to Japan, but it took years for it to actually come to fruition. Interestingly, Pixar also helped Square Enix design the “toy” versions of Sora, Donald, and Goofy, so it seems like they’ve been fairly involved in the creation of the Toy Story segment of Kingdom Hearts III.
Nomura aptly described why Toy Story is such a good fit for Kingdom Hearts:
“Toy Story was a pioneering CG movie, and so the look of it has a certain catchiness. It also has a high degree of recognition. And another reason is that it suits the world view of Kingdom Hearts. I’ve always thought that with the ‘toys have souls’ element, we’d be able to do a Kingdom Hearts style story. For me, because I’ve wanted to put this world into Kingdom Hearts [for a long time], I am deeply moved that it’s actually happened.”
Kingdom Hearts III is scheduled to hit the Xbox One and PS4 sometime in 2018. You can check out WWG’s latest coverage of the game, right here.
[via Kotaku]
