'Kingdom Hearts' Director Reveals Why There's No 'Star Wars' Or Marvel

With Kingdom Hearts III, Square Enix expanded the Disney worlds Sora explores by adding Pixar properties into the mix. And now with classic Disney and Pixar both represented, fans are wondering when some of Disney's other big IP, like Marvel and Star Wars, will show up.

Well, apparently Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura would love to expand to these universes, but it's not as simple as simply wanting to do it.

In an interview in the Ultimania book for Kingdom Hearts III, Nomura was asked whether or not Marvel and Disney will ever appear in future games. Here's how he replied:

That's right," said the director, acknowledging that Lucasfilm and Marvel are both now Disney properties. "However, in order to change those [properties] into a game, contracts must be made with each company separately, and there are cases where other game companies already have contracts, so although the Disney Group has indeed added those [properties], incorporating them into Kingdom Hearts isn't so simple. That's also the reason Mickey is in only one scene in Kingdom Hearts 1. At the same time, another company was releasing a game that had to do with Mickey, so though we were denied his usage, we persisted and eventually got "as long as you only have one scene, from far away, as a silhouette, with him waving his hand or something". Since we had to make the best of the biggest [and only] chance we had, that's why that scene appears that way."

As you can see, it's not an issue of desire to expand with Marvel and Star Wars, but a lot of legal hurdles with what sounds like some politicking also involved. In other words, a lot of stuff out of the hands of Nomura and his team.

That said, the door isn't completely closed. By the time Kingdom Hearts 4 releases -- if it ever does -- the situation may change. And besides, at this point, you'd think with any future release Square Enix would have to one-up itself again, and what better way to do it than adding either Star Wars or Marvel or both.

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Source: KH13 via GameInformer