Kingdom Hearts 4 May Release Next Year

Despite the fact that Kingdom Hearts 4 is on the way, news on the next addition to Square Enix's beloved action RPG franchise has been wholly scarce for the most part, with rumors instead shifting to a supposed live-action adaptation that could be in the works. Seeing as Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced a little over two years ago, with April 10th marking that particular anniversary, fans are eager for information on when the next installment to Sora's adventure will be available for them to experience.

While there's nothing official just yet, leaker Daniel Richtman (known on Twitter as @DanielRPK) claims that Kingdom Hearts 4 will release in 2025 on his Patreon, stating simply, "I hear the 4th game will release next year." While that's obviously not a ton of information, it's at least something for fans to hold onto in the meantime while we wait for more of an official word.

What We Know About Kingdom Hearts 4

As mentioned, Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced two years ago during the Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary event. While this is the fourth entry in the main storyline there are thirteen games total, so suffice to say there's a lot of lore already established here. As for what Square Enix has in store for Sora, Donald, Goofy, and all of the friends they meet along the way in Kingdom Hearts 4, we're all waiting patiently for an official gameplay and story trailer to come in the future before we can know in a bit more detail the things we'll get to experience supposedly in 2025.

What we have seen is an announcement trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4 in which Sora is seen with a massively updated, more realistic look. The realism doesn't stop with Sora as the world around him, Quadratum, is just as realistic and gorgeous and entirely unlike anything the franchise has offered up to now. In the trailer we see Sora joined by Strelitzia, a character from one of the Kingdom Hearts spin-off games, Unchained X. And of course Donald and Goofy are searching for Sora ... again.

The storyline for this new game is titled the "Lost Master Arc," which indicates an exciting addition to the series and follows the "The Dark Seeker Saga," the saga players have already experienced in the previous games. What exactly this "Lost Master Arc" will have the heroes up against is still unknown, but Kingdom Hearts co-creator and Kingdom Hearts 4 director Tetsuya Nomura gave a little deeper insight into the game in an interview with Game Informer in June of 2022.

In the interivew, Nomura confirmed the world seen in the announcement trailer, Quadratum, is the "initial base within the game" and that players will "spend time there and then go to different worlds and then go back there." He also confirmed that "there will be Disney worlds in Kingdom Hearts 4," though exactly what that will entail this time remains a mystery.

It was also this interview where Nomura addressed the lack of Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts 3, sharing, "With Kingdom Hearts 3, since we did have so many original Kingdom Hearts characters, it was hard to find room for including more Final Fantasy characters. We're trying to find a good balance for that." As this was when Kingdom Hearts 4 was already in-development, it's very unlikely we'll see any of Square Enix's other beloved franchise's characters in KH4.

The only other real potential information of note is that there will potentially be a Star Wars world featured in Kingdom Hearts 4 as fans were quick to spot what seems to be a forest environment and the foot of an AT-ST vehicle from Star Wars in the background of a particular shot. If this brief glimpse in the trailer was in fact the first Star Wars incorporation into the Kingdom Hearts franchise, it seems very likely we'll be exploring Endor.

What are your hopes for Kingdom Hearts 4?