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Chie

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You can argue they already did if you substitute "game" for "entry" (X Back Cover).

But that's besides the point, nobody's even saying the game won't have Disney in it because we literally already see Disney in the trailer. The question is if we are returning to "normal Disney worlds" or if the format will be different.
 

Luminary

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Disney won't share their assets so the team has to recreate them from scratch, but even if they did, they're not meant for use in games and would need to be altered.

Yeah I know Disney hasn’t done it in the past. Pixar shared a small amount of stuff with them for KH3 like the Sully model, but it wasn’t the full thing and did have to be altered a lot as you said. However, when it comes to scenery, textures, etc., it may not be as much of an issue with UE5 as it is capable of using film quality assets that UE4 wasn’t able to thanks to the new Nanite tech. There would still be modifications needed to suit the game’s purposes, but it would still save time I think. (This is more about scenery, textures, etc. as I don’t think real time rendering of Disney’s character models is there yet.)

My hope is that Disney’s mindset may have changed considering the success of 3 and how they’ve been encouraging developers to use their IPs more. Being more cooperative would help Square develop the games faster and thus make them all more money. If it’s going to look near indistinguishable from the movies anyways at this point, why make the developers do extra work when they own the content either way? It could help Square if they are to ever actually make that Disney+ show too. I could see that being pushed back to switch to UE5 too actiallly.

Disney has been working with Epic and Unreal Engine themselves on projects like the Mandalorian recently. So the working relationship between the three companies is there at least.

All that said, there could be more legal hurdles, etc. if they were to share assets with Square, so it may not only be a simple matter of them being protective of their work. But I’m not sure.
 
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Face My Fears

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I mean, we don't know that considering that scenario kinda never happened.
Maybe it never happened because DISNEY never greenlit a DISNEY-less KH game?

Wasn't that basically 0.2? The locations were DISNEY ones, but not really emphasized and the only DISNEY character was Mickey.
 

Chie

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I mean, you could argue that Days comes close (Roxas is discouraged from interacting with the disney characters most of the time so for a lot of missions the worlds are only incidental settings) and Missing Link is shaping up to be this (but it has random gacha trophies of goofy!). The disney worlds are similarly irrelevant to anything happening in UX and don't even actually exist (except WIR stuff), despite technically making up long chapters of ""content"". 0.2 is another great example.

Every time people posit "KH without Disney content", I think that it's essentially already been there the whole time, even if Mickey has to appear in one scene in Days so they can put him on the box for recognition. There's never been a requirement for you to go to a bunch of new advertising Disney worlds in these works, not since CoM. In all these instances, Disney is technically still "there" in some capacity because it is a part of the story, but corp execs clearly aren't actually checking out the details in games like Days, 0.2, etc. Nomura can basically do what he wants if it's not working with "all new modern properties" like KH3.
 

Sign

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But didn’t Disney share their assets during KH3’s development? If I remember correctly, they did share them. Or did they support the development process?
You're right actually; I was mixing up pre-KH3 stories when Disney was more stingy. They did share assets with the dev team, but the fact remains that said assets weren't suitable for games and needed much editing.

 

MATGSY

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Plus Disney would never ever agree to greenlight a Kingdom Hearts game that does not feature their properties in it.
I don't think Square would allow that. They'll want a big budget game to sell as many copies as possible and if there's so much as a chance that a bunch of people don't buy KH4 because of no Disney, then they won't take the risk.
 

Gandalf-the-Wise

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That's silly. The reveal of the Disney Worlds is literally how they market these games. They're not gonna relegate the main reason people buy these games to just cutscenes.

I know some people want to say otherwise but Disney and their worlds are literally the reason people purchase these games. And by people I don't mean us on the forums, I mean the average person.

They love Disney and being able to play through your favorite Disney films is a heavy trip through nostalgia.

Plus Disney would never ever agree to greenlight a Kingdom Hearts game that does not feature their properties in it.
I agree with this post wholeheartedly. Though I have been here for years I still find it astonishing that quite a few people here still have that mentality. It's like these forums are caught in an infinite loop, every time a new big numbered sequel to this franchise is announced you will see the same posts here about how there will no longer be anymore Disney worlds and that the series is becoming to serious and mature for any Disney content to be included.

People made those assumptions before Kingdom Hearts 2, and again before Kingdom Hearts 3. Now yet again for Kingdom Hearts 4. Let's not forget what series this is. Disney is essential to this series. Admit it, without that unique crossover with Disney, Kingdom Hearts would just be looked at as nothing more than a Final Fantasy knock off, and wouldn't have nearly the same popularity as it does now.

Disney is here to stay folks, till there is nothing left to do with this franchise.
 

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Its not just these forums, every other week or so I see someone on the subreddit or Twitter posting how the next major KH game isn't gonna have Sora as the protagonist or Disney worlds because the series is becoming so dark. Disney is here to stay.
 

Chie

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Though I have been here for years I still find it astonishing that quite a few people here still have that mentality. It's like these forums are caught in an infinite loop, every time a new big numbered sequel to this franchise is announced you will see the same posts here about how there will no longer be anymore Disney worlds
But that's not even what anyone said. What's being brought up here is the idea that instead of animated Disney worlds, the new worlds we visit would be different Disney properties like Star Wars. That is still a "Disney world" if Toy Story is a "Disney world".

Then somebody else responded to the post as if it was saying "guys theres no disney in the new game" and then you responded to it with "what! I can't believe someone would say that!", and all this when we literally already saw Olympus in the trailer.

What are you people even responding to? Nobody is debating this!
 

Alpha Baymax

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That's silly. The reveal of the Disney Worlds is literally how they market these games. They're not gonna relegate the main reason people buy these games to just cutscenes.

I know some people want to say otherwise but Disney and their worlds are literally the reason people purchase these games. And by people I don't mean us on the forums, I mean the average person.

They love Disney and being able to play through your favorite Disney films is a heavy trip through nostalgia.

Plus Disney would never ever agree to greenlight a Kingdom Hearts game that does not feature their properties in it.
You misunderstood my post. I agree with you in that Kingdom Hearts games are going to feature Disney world's, I just think Kingdom Hearts IV is just going to stick with Disney Live-Action Remakes.
 

Gandalf-the-Wise

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But that's not even what anyone said. What's being brought up here is the idea that instead of animated Disney worlds, the new worlds we visit would be different Disney properties like Star Wars. That is still a "Disney world" if Toy Story is a "Disney world".

Then somebody else responded to the post as if it was saying "guys theres no disney in the new game" and then you responded to it with "what! I can't believe someone would say that!", and all this when we literally already saw Olympus in the trailer.

What are you people even responding to? Nobody is debating this!
You misunderstood my post. I am not specifically just saying this thread alone, I am saying throughout the forums like I mentioned in my post. Some people think not even the live action Disney films would get involved either. I know for a fact Disney will be involved, no one here has to convince me otherwise. I just hope it is included better than how it was in part 3, and more along the lines how kh1 & 2 did it. Though with the new management with Disney nowadays who knows.

Speaking of live action Disney films I'm not into any of the remakes at all! The only one I see being remotely interesting is Maelficent just to see the polarizing differences between the two characters and sdg's reactions to it.
 

mriku90

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You misunderstood my post. I agree with you in that Kingdom Hearts games are going to feature Disney world's, I just think Kingdom Hearts IV is just going to stick with Disney Live-Action Remakes.
Majority of the live action films have been panned if not found polarizing at best. I wouldn't use those to sell any game. They have not been received well.
 

Sign

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You misunderstood my post. I agree with you in that Kingdom Hearts games are going to feature Disney world's, I just think Kingdom Hearts IV is just going to stick with Disney Live-Action Remakes.
A few live-action worlds I can understand, but not an entire game's worth. Seems pretty wasteful considering how much it's going to eat into the budget to pay all of those actors to use their likenesses.
 

Face My Fears

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A few live-action worlds I can understand, but not an entire game's worth. Seems pretty wasteful considering how much it's going to eat into the budget to pay all of those actors to use their likenesses.
Do they actually have to pay for likenesses? I thought DISNEY owned the likenesses.

If that is the case, then I agree they will probably do a handful of live action worlds. I can see them doing Star Wars, Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book. Alice and Jungle Book would only need to pay Alice and Mowgli's actors. I assume that LucasFilms owns Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher's likenesses, so they won't be paid.
 

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Majority of the live action films have been panned if not found polarizing at best. I wouldn't use those to sell any game. They have not been received well.
They've also made money, which Disney cares more about than what critics think.

Besides, how good or bad a movie is doesn't really matter to KH, what matters is how it works as a video game level. PotC3 is a narrative mess both in film & in KH3 but otherwise was 1 of the game's highlights. Cars 2 is the worst of the Cars films but IMO would work the best as a world because it has actual combat. Hell, I would've made the argument that Phantom Menace would be the best SW film to adapt with its variety of locales & Darth Maul being a much faster & more agile boss than Vader.
 

MATGSY

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Do they actually have to pay for likenesses? I thought DISNEY owned the likenesses.

If that is the case, then I agree they will probably do a handful of live action worlds. I can see them doing Star Wars, Alice in Wonderland and The Jungle Book. Alice and Jungle Book would only need to pay Alice and Mowgli's actors. I assume that LucasFilms owns Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher's likenesses, so they won't be paid.
Ha, no.
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Disney Infinity went to such great lengths to make their figures somehow look the characters but not the actors. & Mark Hamill is involved with the Deep Fake-Luke in the Mandalorian & Boba Fett shows even if he's not physically on set or recording voiceover. So likenesses are licensed.

It's also why Port Royal/The Caribbean was omitted from MoM & Tron wasn't a guest party member in that game.
 

Chie

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For my personal opinion I don't think it will involve "live action remakes" or even "all live action movies" per se but I think all thematic considerations point to a different approach to world selection than "SDG go to random disney worlds from new movies for 30 hours and the actual plot only advances at the very end". If they did end up making this a "normal kingdom hearts game" despite everything leading up to it, that would be pretty disappointing. And that's why it's no surprise to me that people are thinking about various alternate approaches.

Personally for new worlds I think they could easily get away with the novelty of Star Wars or whatever other surprises are up their sleeve, and not need to pull in a non-existant "frozen 2 crowd". The majority of game time could be spent in plot as Nomura writes it instead of needing to service movies. But is that too much to wish for...
 
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