Though Final Fantasy 15 was mired in a long development time for roughly a decade, the final product that released in 2016 was a combination of series mainstays and a completely overhauled gameplay loop. With the original story arc from Kingdom Hearts now officially finished, Kingdom Hearts 4 now has the opportunity to pivot to new discoveries instead of being bogged down by old mysteries.
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A Final Fantasy for Fans and First-Timers
The marketing for Final Fantasy 15 focused heavily on two things, Noctis and his group of companions, as well as the new world and combat system that would draw in new players. Billed as a “Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers” Square Enix saw the way that the game being the fifteenth in the series might make the prospect of drawing in new players. As a result, Final Fantasy 15 stands out as a title that can ease players into the long-running tropes of the series without getting bogged down with the long history of turn-based titles that have gone out of vogue since the earlier games.
Considering that Final Fantasy 15 went on to be the most successful launch for the franchise at the time, this outreach to make sure that it had wider appeal worked for the game. Square Enix has since seem similar success with the Final Fantasy 7 Remake, also thanks in part to the way that it updated the more antiquated mechanics for modern audiences. However, while this all worked well for the separated games in the Final Fantasy series, Kingdom Hearts’ ongoing story arcs will need to do a lot more legwork to draw in new players.
Kingdom Hearts 4 Moving Forward with new Fans
A new storyline and mysterious antagonist aren’t the only things that Kingdom Hearts 4 appears to be introducing as Sora prepares for a new adventure. This next installment appears to also be introducing an entirely new realm of existence with the World of Fiction that exists outside the previously explored realms of Light, Darkness, and Nothing. The result is a new era for Kingdom Hearts that can explore completely new characters and all new worlds like the upcoming Quadratum without the baggage of the earlier series.
Unlike the newer Final Fantasy titles, the hurdle for Kingdom Hearts 4 is the long-running storyline from the last twenty years. In fact, bringing back Kingdom Hearts 2’s reaction commands is being touted as a positive feature of this new title. Instead, this new game can reinvent the series and bring in new fans by smoothing over the complex narrative that has built up until now.
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Kingdom Hearts 4 Stepping Away from History and Mystery
One aspect of the Kingdom Hearts series that has kept fans engaged since the very beginning is the way that each game has expanded on the ongoing lore. These have previously taken the form of everything from revealing the origins of primary antagonist Xehanort, to establishing why Sora’s Nobody doesn’t look like him. It can be easy to take this long string of twists, reveals, and hidden mysteries and call in convoluted or overly-complicated, but there has always been a coherent thread for fans to follow until now.
However, as fun as the ongoing series can be for longtime fans, the half-dozen games across nearly as many consoles previously made introducing new players to Kingdom Hearts into a hassle. So, what Kingdom Hearts 4’s new story direction needs more than any spectacle or mystery to follow is a way to bring new players into the fold. This could easily be accomplished with an optional recap at the start of the next game, or by creating a whole new foundation for this new story in these new worlds.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is currently in development.
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