Kingdom Hearts 3 Not the End of the Series

[Cognimancer]

Kingdom Hearts 3 Not the End of the Series

Kingdom Hearts 3 may conclude Sora's battle, but the franchise will go on.

It's been over a decade since Square Enix spilled some Disney all over its Final Fantasy and created one of the most strangely appealing crossovers in recent memory. Though there have been numerous spinoffs and portable games, Kingdom Hearts 3 is the game fans have been waiting for to finally conclude the story. Series director Tetsuya Nomura doesn't plan on ending things so quickly, though: he says that even though Kingdom Hearts 3 will bring closure to the events that began in the first game, the series is far from over.

"In Kingdom Hearts 3, the battles that the characters have been fighting for the past 10 years will come to a conclusion," Nomura says. "But the series will continue. Only the particular enemy they have been fighting for the past 10 years will come to an end." This means we'll be finishing the current plotline (the Dark Seeker / Xehanort saga), but there are many directions the series could take in the future.

Nomura also mentioned that the final design of Kingdom Hearts 3 will depend on which brands Disney allows the studio to use. This could include Pixar franchises - Disney Infinity is already merging those universes - but nothing is confirmed, nor has there been any word on Star Wars.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is planned to launch on the PS4 and Xbox One sometime in the future.

Source: LA Times [http://herocomplex.latimes.com/games/tetsuya-nomura-is-ready-at-last-for-kingdom-hearts-3-to-progress/]

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[Vault Citizen]

I believe that they said something to this effect a year or two ago (maybe more I can't quite remember). I'm glad that while the will be making more games they are going to wrap the current storyline up at least.

 

[Roxas1359]

No! No! No! No! No!
Dammit, I love the Kingdom Hearts franchise a lot, but you know there are times in which a series must come to an end so then they are not milked to death by the company. But then again, this is Square Enix we are talking about. Mainly I don't want what's happened to FF to happen to Kingdom Hearts as well.
Who knows, I'll probably end up buying the games still anyway, but I'd rather have closure to a series for once. >.>

 

[l3o2828]

I am actually excited how Square Enix can create a new 'Most Unintentionally Homosexual Script' with Kingdom Hearts 4.
I mean 1 and 2 were GLORIOUSLY amusing thanks to that writting that seems to come straight from a shonen-ai manga.
On the other hand while the gameplay in KHs is really really good i must agree that series do need to end and conclude so that we can move unto a different subject.
Let's soo how this goes, maybe Kingdom Hearts 4 will be a brand recognition title with entirely different gameplay and mechanics, who knows, maybe SQueenix isn't a terrible milking machine after all!

 

[nuba km]

Please let them use pixar franchises so that we can go to monsters inc., bugs life and/or toy story. I would pay in blood to see that.

 

[dragongit]

I have no doubt they can continue to go on and on. My problem is that Disney does in some way have a finite resource. You can go back to Agrabah and Halloween Town so many times before you can't do much else with it. And beyond that they will run out of TV shows and movies eventually. Don't get me wrong I love the HK series and I went nuts when they announced it at E3, but my fear is how long can they push this before it over stays it's welcome.

 

[Iklwa]

No! No! No! No! No!
Dammit, I love the Kingdom Hearts franchise a lot, but you know there are times in which a series must come to an end so then they are not milked to death by the company. But then again, this is Square Enix we are talking about. Mainly I don't want what's happened to FF to happen to Kingdom Hearts as well.
Who knows, I'll probably end up buying the games still anyway, but I'd rather have closure to a series for once. >.>

I agree with you the point that sometimes series need to know when to end, but FF is a tad different. For the most part, FF games are standalone, with the only real relation to other games in the series being the title. There have been two actual sequels, but otherwise they're completely different stories.

Now, for KH, 3 will (hopefully) wrap it up with Sora and the gang, and maybe with subsequent games they'll go into someone else's story. I'm not afraid though, because with Square, I doubt they'll actually run a series into the ground. There are 14 Final Fantasies, but there are also 14 seperate, independent of the rest, games.

 

[TWEWYFan]

I've got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Kingdom Hearts is pretty reliably fun to play and even the worst Kingdom Hearts game has a some charm to it. On the other hand, pushing more and more installments out of franchise rarely ends well. It might be good just to conclude the series and quite while they're still ahead.

 

[Roxas1359]

Now, for KH, 3 will (hopefully) wrap it up with Sora and the gang, and maybe with subsequent games they'll go into someone else's story. I'm not afraid though, because with Square, I doubt they'll actually run a series into the ground. There are 14 Final Fantasies, but there are also 14 seperate, independent of the rest, games.

True, I'm more upset though because now I fear fans will want me to LP every subsequent KH game that comes out. I've already been nagged to death about the other ones and a lot of the time people just want me to make KH videos!
>.<
I guess using FF as an example was bad, but a better example could have possibly been the Assassin's Creed series and how Ubisoft thinks how sequels are, etc. For me it would be interesting to see new settings and new characters once the story about Sora is done, but I'm more concerned about where it can really go from the Xehanort saga and everything. I mean heck they already have a game from Square Enix about the Keyblade War, it's a browser game made by them that was a preorder bonus if you preordered 1.5 ReMix back when it came out in Japan.
Don't get me wrong, I love the KH series, but I do feel that the series should end after 3.

 

[Shinsei-J]

As Vault Citizen said, they told us this years ago saying that the Xehanort saga was ending but Sora's story will continue.
I for one love this as a huge KH fan, it's an expanding universe with rich lore like any other that just happens to have Disney characters in it. While they're not a small part they are just a base and not what alone made Kingdom Hearts the success it is.

As I said before, with lore like this there's so much ground left to cover.

Please let them use pixar franchises so that we can go to monsters inc., bugs life and/or toy story. I would pay in blood to see that.

How many virgin goats must I sacrifice for this to be a thing?

 

[klaynexas3]

I remember them talking about this a while back also. I'm mostly just glad the Xehanort Saga is coming to an end. It'd be interesting to see what else they can explore, hell, maybe they can make some new mythos for the universe. Maybe go the morally ambiguous route like the SMT games did and make the Light and Dark not just "Good and Evil." Though I've never seen Xehanort as straight up "I want to watch the world burn" evil. More so, a "this is what I think is right, and I won't let anything get in my path to make it so" type of bad, where he'll screw over other people to make it happen.

 

[MCerberus]

Isn't this one of those vaporware games...
Wait a second
Vaporware...
Three...
KH3 is being made by Valve

 

[CrazyGirl17]

While I'm glad they're finally tying up all the loose ends... I'm not sure if they can actually continue the story afterwards.

...This is gonna turn into another Final Fantasy, isn't it?

 

[Simple Bluff]

Just so long as it does come out.

The only reason it took so long to begin with was because Nomura was tied up with Final Fantasy XIII Versus/XV. KH3 would have been released years ago if it wasn't for that.

Then what's their excuse for that not coming out? It was announced in freaking '06! Oh well - I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that it didn't hold up the near annual release of spin offs. Indeed.

 

[Roxas1359]

Just so long as it does come out.

The only reason it took so long to begin with was because Nomura was tied up with Final Fantasy XIII Versus/XV. KH3 would have been released years ago if it wasn't for that.

Then what's their excuse for that not coming out? It was announced in freaking '06! Oh well - I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that it didn't hold up the near annual releases of spin offs. Indeed.

Nomura scrapped the entire thing when the game was about 80-85% done and then remade it entire from scratch...yeah that's something you should never do. That's why it's been renamed FF XV as well.

 

[The_Echo]

This is some pretty old news. :I

We've known for a while that Kingdom Hearts III was the end of the Dark Seeker saga, but not the franchise. And we also know that Nomura plans to keep Sora as the hero for the entire run of the series.

Personally, I'd like the next saga to take place during the Keyblade War, and have no connection to the Dark Seeker saga. Because there's a lot of cool stuff that could happen there. But, I guess it's only a wish~

Nomura also mentioned that the final design of Kingdom Hearts 3 will depend on which brands Disney allows the studio to use. This could include Pixar franchises - Disney Infinity is already merging those universes - but nothing is confirmed, nor has there been any word on Star Wars.

For the love of all that is good and holy, let it stay that way.

 

[roushutsu]

I figured that would be the case. Square would never let this die so easily. If KH3 is indeed the end of the Xehanort stuff, I'll be happy. It's been going on for so long, I want some new stuff!