Prerelease:Kingdom Hearts III

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Kingdom Hearts III.

To do: Lots and lots of todos to todo. Cut line from the demo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKPH1bA_-y4 KH3 Interview after the switch to Unreal Engine 4 from September/October 2014. https://www.khinsider.com/interviews/Famitsu-Interview-with-Nomura-Fully-Translated-4523

Kingdom Hearts III took a rather long time to be developed, for many different and rather unspecified reasons. Notable reasons include director Tetsuya Nomura wanting to focus on Final Fantasy XV first before working on the video game, the many, many complications with Disney's stricter rules on how their characters should be used and Square Enix Osaka Studio's unexpected task to create a fully-fledged Kingdom Hearts game rather than a smaller spin-off title.

Despite all of the many complications that happened during development, it still turned out to be a good game, even if there are many unfinished elements that were never fully fleshed out.

Developmental Timeline

2007-2012

• May 2012 - In a GameInformer magazine, Tetsuya Nomura said that he wants to create the next entry for Kingdom Hearts and wants to develop it on a console rather than on a handheld. He didn't say anything else about the decision afterwards.

2013

• Jun. 10 - The game was revealed at E3 2013, showing a short trailer of the gameplay. Nomura said that development of the game was shown "far too early in development" and a release date wasn't given.
• Jun. 19 - More details.
• Oct. 15 - Another trailer was shown at the D23 Expo 2013 in Japan.
• Nov. - The developmental team of Kingdom Hearts III is temporarily split up to work on Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX.

2014

• Sep. 1 - Tetsuya Nomura steps down as director from Final Fantasy XV to fully focus on development of Kingdom Hearts III, as part of a "company restructure".
• Oct. 6 - Development of the video game was confirmed to have changed to Unreal Engine 4, due to a "variety of reasons". Though this proved to be a tough task for the developmental team, Nomura stated that that the change would "not hinder the game's development".
• Dec. 2 - A trailer was shown behind closed doors at the Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix launch event in America, showing what would be an earlier version of Scala ad Caelem.
• Dec. 12 - More info about engine switch?

2015

• Apr. 14 - Tetsuya Nomura confirms that there will be news for Kingdom Hearts III, specifically at the D23 Expo Japan 2015.
• Jun. 16 - A new trailer was finally revealed at E3 2015, showing off the intro cutscene and the Tangled world. Though, no release date wasn't given yet.
• Jun. 22 - Tetsuya Nomura is interested on bringing "online functions" to Kingdom Hearts III, but he claimed that they're "still not at the point where we can test these ideas inside the main game."
• Jun. 24 - The game is confirmed to have a release window, but Square are willing to reveal it later on.
• Aug. 16 - At the D23 Expo 2015, a Big Hero 6 World, San Fransokyo is confirmed to be in the game.

2016

• Oct. 13 - Tetsuya said that the three boxarts of the Kingdom Hearts HD compilations will contain a "secret message" in relation to Kingdom Hearts III, which represent the sunset to night and sunrise.
• Oct. 27 - New screenshots of Kingdom Hearts III was finally shown after almost a year without any new information.

2017

• Jan. 10 - Nomura says that development of Kingdom Hearts III "still has a way to go", with production on unannounced worlds in a state where we cannot show them off".
• Jan. 12-28 - Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue is released, which contains 0.2 -a fragmentary passage- which is built with the new Unreal Engine.
• Jun. 11 - Orchestra trailer.

2018

• Jun. 9 - The game is pushed back to January 2019. The reasoning for this is so the game could be released in Japan and other regions around the same time.
• Nov. 20 - Development of the game is finally complete.

2019

• Jan 25-29 - Kingdom Hearts III finally comes out.

2005-2010

Pre-Development

Pre-production and conceptualization for Kingdom Hearts III started right after Kingdom Hearts II was released in 2005. In the Kingdom Hearts II Ultimania released in October 2005 and in a letter sent by a fan from Disney Adventures magazine in 2007, Nomura mentioned that they don't have any plans for a Kingdom Hearts III and have already started to shift his focus towards the next title, which would be Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep. In an April 2007 interview with Degenki PlayStation, Nomura elaborated that from the video in the ending was not Kingdom Hearts III and it wouldn't be a new series if it were a singular numbered game.

Two years later, Nomura said in the Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days Ultimania that he has put his mind towards Final Fantasy Versus XIII, but at the same time he wants to put his mind towards a possible Kingdom Hearts III..

Developmental Beginnings

In March 2010, Kingdom Hearts III has been confirmed to be in development, according to the Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep Ultimania despite spending more of his time on Versus XIII's development. Nomura said that Kingdom Hearts III would not be the end of the series, but rather the "first part of an even bigger story", where he calls the games up until then are the "Xehanort Chronicles".. Tetsuya Nomura further stated this;

"There was never a plan [at first]. As a core game, this is finally the third, and 10 years have passed. I couldn't call this a trilogy. There have been so many spinoffs. In Kingdom Hearts 3, the battles that the characters have been fighting for the past 10 years will come to a conclusion. But the series will continue. Only the particular enemy they have been fighting the past 10 years will come to an end,"

Later in September, Nomura has expressed interest in doing Kingdom Hearts III even though he has been busy with Versus XIII. Despite that, he claims that the sequel would be "worth the wait", no matter how much time he spends on it. Every spin-off title since then had been "experiments and challenges with new things", and Nomura wanted to put all of them into the new title.

It had begun development on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which was always intended for next-generation consoles around that time while it was also being developed on PC so it could be ported to meet the console's specifications. Despite the challenges of new hardware, Nomura promised the fans he would work hard on it.

Development was handled over to Square Enix Osaka, after their work and experience in developing Birth By Sleep and the HD ReMIX games because Nomura hoped that the team would develop a main numbered title for consoles, and Square Enix Tokyo had already begun development on another major title.

Choosing Worlds

One of the first worlds to be chosen was a world based on the Pixar film Toy Story, which was previously considered for Kingdom Hearts II. Nomura felt like he couldn't be able to create the game without including Pixar worlds, so he tried to discuss them about it and were able to do in the end, most notably because Disney and Pixar were merged in 2006 which made obtaining rights easier. Despite that, Nomura traveled to America twice where he couldn't be able to make it applicable for the game at first, before Nomura showed the plot of the Toy Story world before the main story of Kingdom Hearts III was written. Upon the creators' request at Pixar, they wanted the plot of the Toy Story and Monsters Inc. world to be set in an "authorized history" rather than following the storyline of other Disney worlds which were set during the movie's canon.

Frozen was a film that was highly-anticipated in Japan before it was theatrically released. Nomura went to see an advanced screening of the film while deciding on worlds for the game and ultimately chose it.

When asked about worlds from future Disney productions such as the then-forthcoming Frozen, Nomura had kept silent about it then. https://www.khinsider.com/news/KHDestiny-KHisland-Interviews-Tetsuya-Nomura-at-Japan-Expo-3362

Creating The Graphics

Graphical tests were done early in the game's development, where textures were changed to fit them onto better hardware. The models used in the Disney and Pixar films were not able to be imported into the game's engine, and had to be recreated from scratch so Disney and Pixar themselves provided some 3D models used in the works as a reference. The developmental team also had to watch the original films multiple times when developing cutscenes, so they could perfectly capture the character animations. Rapunzel's long hair from the Kingdom of Corona world was difficult to animate, which would result in it not being shown much out of pre-release media.

The detailed and realistic graphics for the Pirates of the Caribbean world were also created early in development, where the developmental team showcased a clip of Sora sailing the sea and fighting enemies in the sky. It had received positive reception among the team, where it looked better than their other titles in development and Nomura cited it as one of his highlights of his career.

(Kingdom Hearts III Ultimania Interview (Translated): https://www.khinsider.com/news/Kingdom-Hearts-3-Ultimania-Main-Nomura-Interview-Translated-14763)

2013

June

E3 2013

Trailer

On June 10, 2013 the very first trailer for Kingdom Hearts III was released, in the form of a teaser. They said it would come out for the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One the following day. No release date was given and Nomura said that the trailer was shown "too early", stating that the game was "very early into production".

He later expanded on this in an interview with fansites KHDestiny and KHIsland in July, saying that this was the first next-generation title in recent years developed by Square Enix Osaka, which were a small team developing titles for portable consoles and the challenge of developing a large-scale game proved to be "a challenge" for them. Nomura also said that there was no current playable build and they were testing out new elements that would be in the game.

• The graphical style is completely different from the final, where Nomura said that the developers referred to that as the "Kingdom Shader" so it could reproduce the brush shading of animated Disney characters in "even greater detail", while also being adjusted for other worlds.
• Sora wore his Kingdom Hearts II outfit.
• An "EX Gauge" was present, which was removed in the final.
• The scene at the beginning is in the final game.
• Twlight Town looks almost exactly as it originally does in Kingdom Hearts II, which is almost of a straight-up port with some minor alterations.
• The Demon Tide looked different.
• The Twilight Town Commands HUD wasn't used, and the generic one was used instead.

Square Enix Presents

In the interview for Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX, Nomura discussed what the next Kingdom Hearts game might be about;

• Nomura hopes that he wishes to have some "stable" worlds that connect with the story, along with a number of "surprising" ones, which is what he wants to implement most for the latter.
• Regarding the combat and battle system, Nomura wants to "evolve" it from the original "core" system of Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II. He later confirmed in the Square Enix Channel that it would take much of it from Dream Drop Distance.
• When asked about Final Fantasy characters possibly reappearing in the game, he said that it would most likely happen. Nomura was also asked about the possibility of King Mickey appearing, where he would take it "under consideration", while also trying to make Sora the main character rather than Mickey.
  • Both of those features do not appear in the final vanilla game, until the Re Mind expansion. The Final Fantasy characters appear in the Limit Cut episode, where Nomura said that they were cut because they didn't have enough time to implement them. King Mickey is also reduced to a temporarily playable character in the Re Mind episode as part of a battle.
• Nomura also confirmed that summoning characters would also be in the game, except it would be a little different.

https://www.khinsider.com/news/KINGDOM-HEARTS-III-HD-1-5-ReMIX-Nomura-Interview-3326

Famitsu Interview

Some more information was revealed over a week after the first teaser trailer debuted. Nomura confirmed that the world selection "wasn't finalized" as of yet, but he promised that more information would be revealed later on. https://www.polygon.com/2013/6/19/4444394/kingdom-hearts-3-detailed-by-game-director-tetsuya-nomura https://www.khinsider.com/news/New-Kingdom-Hearts-3-Details-from-Dengeki-Playstation-3341

July

Japan Expo Interview

https://www.khinsider.com/news/Tetsuya-Nomura-Interview-at-Japan-Expo-3361

In an interview with Brazilian gaming website GameFM, Tetsuya Nomura was interested on adding in Star Wars and Marvel-themed worlds and content. Though, he explained about the restrictions of licensing issues, and said that "There are a lot of questions and restrictions at Disney, so we can't put everything people want. So it's a hard decision, but we're preparing some surprises for you, so await for more info."

KHDestiny

Nomura said that he wanted to implement some of the console's features in the game, like the PlayStation 4's voice recognition and Xbox One's smartglass.

September

https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/10/expect-a-wait-between-kingdom-hearts-iii-and-final-fantasy-xv

October

Teruzane Utada, who is the father of Hikaru Utada, known for singing Simple and Clean and Sanctuary said that she will be involved for the theme song for Kingdom Hearts III, but she later clarified that it is still undecided on their involvement.

D23 Japan Trailer

On October 12, 2013, another trailer of the game was shown at the D23 Expo 2013 in Japan. Nomura said that he has already written out the story for Sora and Riku, while he said that he could create new outfits for them. In an interview with Famitsu, he also said that the new attacks were "just a fraction" of the new components.

• The HUDs were positioned more to the bottom corners of the screen.
• The Command HUD was slightly redesigned.
• The mugshots on the health HUD actually moved, while in the first trailer, they were just static images just like the final.
• Twilight Town looks slightly more detailed than last time:
  • The shaders on the buildings were drastically lessened, making it look more darker.
  • The crack on the wall that leads to the Old Mansion was covered up by bricks, rather than having it completely rebuilt.
• A scrapped function for the move was shown in the trailer, called the Two Shoot Keyblade.
• There was no stormy rain weather in the fight with Rock Titan at Mount Olympus, and the area looked brighter.
• There was a lot less detail on the Rock Titan.
• The lights on the Pirate Ship and Big Magic Mountain were a lot less bright, had bleaker colors. The area also originally dimmed to add to the effect.
• The music used in the trailer are tracks taken from previous games, likely used as a placeholder.

Conversation with Creators

Nomura later confirmed that they were aiming for a "photorealistic" combination in each Disney world.

https://www.khinsider.com/news/Conversation-with-Creators-Tetsuya-Nomura-Interview-3449

December

The developmental team of Kingdom Hearts III was halved, where they went on to focus on developing Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX. Despite that, Nomura said that they were giving the games equal amounts of development time. Nomura was unsure whether Kingdom Hearts III would have online support yet.

2014

September

Tokyo Game Show 2014

After almost a year without any new information, a developmental restructure happens at Square Enix, where Nomura steps down directing Final Fantasy XV and wants to focus on games like Kingdom Hearts III.

October

Switch to Unreal Engine 4

On October 7, 2014, Nomura said on Famitsu that the engine that was being developed with Kingdom Hearts III was changed from DirectX 11 to Unreal Engine 4 for "various reasons". This led the developmental team to study effects and psychics, because it had drastically different hardware compared to their previous engine, while it proved to be rather a challenge for them.

Epic is also confirmed to be assisting Square Enix with development.

December

"Cable Town" Trailer

At a launch event to commemorate the launch of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX, a trailer was shown to some fans behind closed doors, along with some conceptual art of what would eventually appear in the game.

The footage was obscured, but Zephyr, a member of KHinsider forums did mockups of the locations in the trailer.

https://images.khinsider.com/2014%20Uploads/12/kh3sketches.png

IGN Interview with Tai Yusue

Video gaming website IGN asked Tai Yusue about the status of Kingdom Hearts III's development. He revealed that ever since they switched to Unreal Engine 4, they spent time studying how it works, because it has different functions compared to the previous engine. Tai Yusue said that he "cannot make any annoucements on Disney worlds, but there is some that he is studying".

https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/12/12/the-trials-and-tribulations-behind-kingdom-hearts-3

2015

June

E3 2015 Trailer

• Twilight Town was starting to look more like the final game's design.
  • At around 2:06-2:08, a missing piece of land can be spotted, possibly signifying that Twilight Town was slowly going through a revamp.

2018

May

Premiere Event Demo

In the May Premiere Event 2018 demo build, it originally had Rex confuse Donald and Goofy for Yozora's sidekicks, Magia and Aegis, on top of confusing Sora for Yozora. That part of the scene was cut from the final game.

References

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