To the surprise of many fans, Kingdom Hearts 3 is now available for preorder on Amazon. But while the release date is stated to be December 30, 2016 on the Amazon page, it also added a disclaimer that December 31 is the placeholder date with December 30 being the shipping date, and details might change in the coming months as updates on the game are released.
Kingdom Hearts 3 will be the last chapter of what Tetsuya Nomura, lead director, concept designer, character designer, and base story writer of the Kingdom Hearts franchise, says is the Dark Seeker saga, which centers on the machinations of Xehanort and his obsession with the titular Kingdom Hearts. The game itself has been subjected to development hell for almost 10 years before it was announced at E3 2013 that it's under the early stages of development. Updates have been sporadic since, but development was presumably delayed once more when Nomura announced that KH3 is now being made in Unreal Engine for "various reasons". In an interview with gamesTM , Nomura states that they had to "(...)pretty much had to start from the ground again. We had to make sure that we could recreate our key effects in the Unreal Engine(...)"
Aside from this, tidbits of information are being spread out throughout interviews and teasers of the other Kingdom Hearts games. According to Game Informer, Nomura also states that KH 0.2 Birth By Sleep A Fragmentary Passage, which is part of the Kingdom Hearts 2.8 release also featuring a remade Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance and a short movie called Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover set to be released on the PS4, will feature a sneak peek of the gameplay of KH3, and it's been confirmed that the game will feature worlds based on Tangled and Big Hero 6. Meanwhile, fans have rejoiced in the fact that in a released screenshot the facial models of Sora seemed to have more expression and realism, rather than the low-poly pasted over facial expressions that can be found in some scenes in the previous games.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is projected to be released late 2016 in Japan, and will be available for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
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