Kingdom Hearts 4: Who Is Strelitzia?
Square Enix finally announced Kingdom Hearts 4 this weekend as part of celebrating the franchise's 20th anniversary. As expected, the reveal led to widespread happiness and praise from a number of longtime fans, but the game's reveal trailer also prompted a number of questions. Perhaps one of the biggest questions that a number of people have had with Kingdom Hearts 4 has been in regard to Strelitzia, who is the new girl character that Sora interacts with in the trailer. While Strelitzia might be a new face to many Kingdom Hearts fans, she's actually someone that has been in the series before.
Warning: Slight spoilers for the Kingdom Hearts series are mentioned below.
Strelitzia first appeared in Kingdom Hearts Union χ, which is the mobile title that released back in 2017. This game fleshed out the backstory of Strelitzia and established her as a Keyblade wielder that lived in the time after the Keyblade War. Over the course of Union χ, Strelitzia's role grew larger as she became a member of the group known as the Dandelions. Eventually, though, Strelitzia was killed by the character Ventus, who was being possessed by Darkness at the time.
Obviously, the newest trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4 quickly establishes that Strelitzia isn't dead, and instead, she is residing in the city of Quadratum with Sora. Strelitzia says in the first trailer for KH4 that Quadratum is a sort of "afterworld", which seems to imply that she ended up here after being killed. This also makes sense given that the Re Mind DLC for Kingdom Hearts 3 (at least in one ending) sees Sora losing in a battle against the character Yozora. Based on what we know so far, both Sora and Strelitzia may have ended up in Quadratum after dying.
What's most interesting about Strelitzia's appearance in Kingdom Hearts 4 is that Square Enix clearly isn't expecting many fans to recognize her from Kingdom Hearts Union χ. In fact, the official description from Square itself describes Strelitzia as an entirely new character. "Fans will be excited to see the return of Sora's well-known companions Donald and Goofy, in addition to the first appearance of Strelitzia, a mysterious new character who appears before Sora in this strange new setting," Square Enix said in a press release that accompanied the announcement of KH4. So basically, even if you aren't familiar with the history of Kingdom Hearts Union χ, it sounds like players will quickly be caught up to speed with who she is and how she plays a role in the future of the series.