Testuya Nomura, director and series creator of theKingdom Heartsfranchise, recently spoke with Dengeki Online about the future of the franchise as a whole. The interview was mostly geared towards the recent release ofKingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, but naturally strayed towards questions about where the franchise will go next. Nomura’s answers clear up some confusion about theending ofKingdom Hearts 3and any potential sequels.
For starters, it should be said that Nomura stressed that nothing new has been announced, and therefore nothing is official. Though this is what Nomura intends at the moment, any number of things could change before the eventual release of aKingdom Heartssequel. Even so, his answers have big implications for the series' future.
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When asked about the unexplored plot points still present at the end ofKingdom Hearts 3, Nomura went on to say that he does plan on tying up those loose ends in the next game, but wants to do so whilemoving past the Darkseeker Saga altogether. It seems his intent is to drastically change whatKingdom Heartsis, and there’s a few ways he could do that.
One of the more obvious changes that could be made is the departure from the hero of the story, Sora. As thechosen keyblade wielder, Sorahas been the focal point of the story for the last 18 years, with even those games that don’t feature him prominently somehow looping back to him in a roundabout way. As much as fans love the goofy protagonist, it would be nice to see things from another point of view in the future.
Nomura says he wants to change the format of the franchise and tell an entirely new story, but doesn’t elaborate past this on what exactly that could mean. TheKingdom Hearts 3 Re:MindDLC already introduced a lot of new characters and worlds, so it would be interesting to see these expanded on. What’s more, there are a lot of underused characters within the finale ofKingdom Hearts 3itself, as characters likeAxel and Kairi hardly got to do anything during the climax.
As a glimmer of hope, Nomura does claim that the team is working on putting something together for 2022, the20th anniversary of theKingdom Heartsfranchiseas a whole. Again, he doesn’t elaborate much on what this would be, but most fans presume it will be a new main entry game or something of similar magnitude.
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