Don’t expect Kingdom Hearts IV news until after the E3 period

Fans were delighted to see Kingdom Hearts IV officially announced with a fancy trailer. But aside from some slight story details and confirmation that it’s in development, we don’t really know much about it. We probably won’t hear about the game again for a while.

Fan-site KH13 has handily translated a Q&A session with series director Tetsuya Nomura from the 20th-anniversary event. There, he admitted that any new information won’t be shared until way after the E3 period.

Kingdom Hearts IV was never going to make an E3 2022 appearance due to the event itself being canceled this year. Since E3 normally takes place in the summer, specifically June, Nomura’s comments mean fans may not see an update on Kingdom Hearts IV until this fall at the absolute earliest. Although it’s just as likely that new info won’t be shared until even later than that.

Given the lack of a release window, release platforms, and only a short glimpse at the gameplay, Kingdom Hearts IV is probably very early in development. Hopefully, fans won’t be left waiting for as long as Kingdom Hearts III. That game was formally announced in 2013, but updates were few and far between, and it did not release until early 2019.

We do know that Kingdom Hearts IV is being made with Unreal Engine 5, although the trailer was built with Unreal Engine 4, and that Sora will still visit multiple worlds beyond the metropolitan city of Quadratum.