During the Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Announcement Trailer, Nobody ever expected to see the next game of Kingdom Hearts. Yap, the Kingdom Hearts 4 is knocking on your door and telling you that Square Enix is (finally) making the next story of Kingdom Hearts! It’s been a decade since the last Kingdom Hearts III was released in 2010.  But if you play the game, you will notice each Kingdom Hearts game is actually connected.

But for those who don’t play it yet, the Kingdom Hearts is the line of Action Role-playing games developed by Square Enix in the collaboration with the Walt Disney Company. Features the infamous character named Sora in his adventure to save the world from the darkness and Heartless, the enemy that Sora must fight in order to destroy the darkness. During his adventure, Sora teamed up with Donald and Goofey to save the world. In order to do it, they need to enter various Disney worlds to fight Heartless to keep the world’s timeline. 

Not only the game features most of the Disney characters, but Some of the Final Fantasy games also appear here. Including Cloud Strife and Sepiroth in the game Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories. 

The Kingdom Hearts 4

On 10th April 2022, Square Enix released a video entitled Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Announcement Trailer for the three of their games. The first trailer that is shown is their mobile games, a sequel to their previous Kingdom Hearts: Union X that is released in 2016. 

The Union X Dark Road will also become a prequel to the old Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep that is released in 2010, telling the flash-back story of Xehanort and why he is the main villain of Kingdom Hearts. 

Followed by the next announcement, the Kingdom Hearts: Missing Link, another mobile game from Square Enix. Unlike the KH: Union X Dark Road, the KH: Missing Link features a totally different 3d Graphics with its battle arena style Hack and Slash gameplay. It was said that the game title is still working and the game also is in the development stage. The Announcement also told that the beta test will be closed in 2022. 

Now getting into the final announcement trailer is the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 4. Telling the story of Sora who woke up in a modern real-world apartment, in a world called the Quadratum. He wakes up by a new character named Strelitzia and together they go into the balcony to look up at the world. Suddenly the calm city starts to fade away when the giant Heartless starts to materialize itself in the middle of the city. Sora goes to attack it with its iconic Keyblade then it switched to a bit of gameplay demo. From the Ultimate Attack, the camera goes 

After that, the Kingdom Hearts 4 logo starts to appear. 

After the logo changes into a black screen, soon after,  the scene of Donald and Goofy walking in the darkness appear. It shows that the adventure of the trio – Sora, Donald, and Goofy will continue, although the release date isn’t announced yet in the trailer.

A Brand New Style

Apart from the two first mobile game trailers, the Kingdom Hearts 4 receives a massive upgrade, especially in the graphic. A more realistic look at the world and the character makes the game looks a bit like Final Fantasy, but somehow Square Enix is still able to maintain the Kingdom Hearts atmosphere inside the game… Even though it’s not totally. 

The upgrade gives a new fresh look to the new character. Mentioning Sora and its realistic Final-Fantasy style character design which gives me a different vibe. With this style, Sora just looks like a teenager version of Cloud Strife without his blonde hair, and Strelitzia just looks like the version of Marlene Wallace when she becomes a teenager, especially with that cute smile in 5:06. Do I like it? Well, it just feels different but yeah I like it so far. Just want to see how the gameplay will do. 

Everything is connected

The Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Announcement Trailer shows us that every Kingdom Hearts game is connected between one and the others. Let’s take Strelitzia, for example, she can be considered a new character in the Kingdom Hearts game, but her first appearance is actually in Kingdom Hearts Union X. And the monster that Sora fought in the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer, is also appearing in the upcoming Kingdom Hearts: Missing Link. 

So many things happening without notice in the latest Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Announcement Trailer. A new game with a brand-new graphic that looks realistic, but unfortunately there’s no release date announcement in the video. Well, that is rather better than following the date which will result in a bad game. 

I just hope the new Kingdom Hearts 4 will stay true to the core.