After being in development for 12 years, Kingdom Hearts III was finally released on 29 January 2019. But it took nowhere as long for Square Enix and Disney to announce the sequel, Kingdom Hearts IV.
The game was announced as part of the series’ 20th anniversary, with a trailer showing a very different setting compared to the series’ norm. Based on said trailer, Kingdom Hearts IV looks to be set in a real world parallel. Though it looks that way, the world, called Quadratum, is referred to as similar to an “afterworld”. Even the established protagonist, Sora, adopts a slightly more realistic look.. Combat also looks very Platinum Games-inspired.
As part of the trailer, Square Enix also unveiled a new upcoming game for mobile. It’s called Kingdom Hearts Missing Link, which will be for both Android and iOS. It will have its closed beta test sometime in 2022, but this is limited to selected regions. No real release date yet either.
It’s much the same story for Kingdom Hearts IV itself. There is no release date, nor info in what platforms it will be on. In a press release, Square Enix says that the game is in “early development”. While it does mean that it will be awhile before its official release, it probably won’t take 12 years.
(Source: Square Enix [1], [2])
