News ► Kingdom Hearts Dark Road details revealed

[GreyouTT]

What Chaser and Spock said are basically why I feel a Switch exclusive game will never happen.

On another note this also has the perk of all future console games using the same (obviously updated as Unreal updates) engine as 3 going forward. So that'll likely cut costs and dev time a bunch.

And I only see them having one mobile app at a time (as evidence by the fact that they just combined DR into UX as if it were a ReMix collection), so that means a lot less series fragmentation going forward as well.

So in conclusion:

Of course I hope the next mobile game has a new everything. There's so many ways a mobile KH could go, like a semi-3D world in the vein of Castelia City in Pokemon B&W. The possibilities are endless!

 

[MrFranklin95]

So basically, "Kingdom Hearts will never have any spin-off games that focus on other stories unless they are mobile." That's... really disappointing. Like at the very least, a Xehanort game, a Union Cross on console, and DDD2 shouldn't be too much to ask for a series that I feel like should be expanding beyond its mobile limitations to gain new fans and new ground in its story but also in the media and gaming landscape before KH4 gets started but I guess it is. And I understand why, it's not like I expect those things to happen all at once but still... I guess it just shows that gaming isnt same as how it was in the early 2000s and 10s.

Man, I feel old...

Well.. at least I hope DDD 2 still happens, which I think it will. It just sucks that a console version of UX seems incredibly unlikely even though at this point, it's in pretty high demand and would do a lot to tie people over between DDD 2 and KH4.

This whole thing is just... ugh. I hate it. I just want KH to be the best it can be. And I dont want to I sh*t on anyone who is perfectly fine with this but it just feels like the only thing fans can do is compromise or get beaten down so much by disappointment that they just have to accept outcomes they don't like deep down while Sqaure Enix and Noruma just do whatever they want regardless they know fans will buy anyways. Even when they do listen, like with Re: Mind, it's not executed in a way that's completely satisfying.

I'm still excited by things for the future of this series. I'm excited for the foretellers arc, I think MoM is the perfect villian and breathe of fresh air from Xehanort and I hope (even thought it's a pipe dream but I'm holding out hope) thag DDD 2 is the Destiny trio game come true but ...a lot of things about the series right now is very demoralizing and I haven't felt this way about the series at all since I've played it back in 2006. Things have disappointed me before but not to this extent were I feel very... sad about how this is going to turn out.

But... maybe that's a bit dramatic. Again, I'm still excited about certain aspects of the series and I still REALLY like KH3 and I love its ending. And in a lot of ways, I do believe Noruma still cares at some level but now... I can kind of feel the burnout; and maybe that's due ti the way this company as treatws him and the fact that it feels like he hasn't a break in a almost a decade but the passion feels almost completely gone... and if that's the case, maybe Noruma should... I don't know, take a break? Maybe let someone else take charge for this new arc? And again, all this might not be on Noruma entirely and it would be foolishly to think so. Sqaure as a company hasn't been making good decisions in the past decade and a change in leaders may have done some good in some cases but in others, a lot decisions feel like a step backwards that is willing to sacrifice creativity for monetary gain and prioritizing certain series over others.

I don't know, I just love Kingdom Hearts. There is so much potential in this series for it to be one of the best franchises in gaming. I just dont want it to crash and burn due to its creative heads feeling burnout and not putting enough into a franchise that deserves more due to how unique its story and even its characters are.

And again, I'm not saying that Nomura and his dev team don't do enough. I don't want to sound ungrateful but Kingdom Hearts really needs that EXTRA push to become more then what it is right now. KH3 made a lot of good steps forward for the franchise but it also created a lot of steps backwards; some due to probably laziness and cost but also some that isn't really there own fault.

And of course, I'm not in the production, so it's hard to say if that's the ENTIRE case. There are just certain things that even Noruma can't control but either way, it doesn't look all that great from the outside and THIS just felt like a giant punch in the face because I strongly feel like this is going to backfire so hard.

 

[redcrown]

It is important to point out that the shift wasn’t 10 years ago, the shift started in 2013 post-KH3D. This is when Yoichi Wada stepped down and Yosuke Matsuda came in as president of Square Enix. He eliminated pretty much all mid-tier development at SE to focus on AAA and mobile developments.

AAA games ARE beasts to develop. An average development cycle for any AAA game is five years, although some developers will cut corners to cut that down into 3 years or even 2. Developers with tried and true development processes and tons of available assets can probably also accomplish 2-3 years.

The problem mostly stems in the fact that SE isn’t really making mid-tier games anymore. If they do, they see it as a huge gamble. Blockbusters and mobile games are easier to make money off of.

Also developing on older tech is also rather 2, too. KH3D was developed on a modified version of BBS’s engine which was solid but rather janky. Unreal Engine is probably a gold standard now for SE because it is an engine with a lot of documentation and support.

And therein lies a problem: it’s still costly to develop a game with that engine. And knowing Nomura, they wouldn’t have gone backwards from KH3. There would be no mid-tier budgeted development (even if us fans would probably be fine with something that didn’t look like KH3 but closer to KH3D). He would keep pushing for better graphics, better gameplay, better this and that because he always wanted to push the limits of the hardware and engines his teams were developing on. It has been his thing since FF8 when he drew Squall with a coat that had feathers because he wanted to see how the developers would handle rendering it in the game.

And I imagine Yasue and the Osaka team also the same. They would only want to push forward.

I’m tired so I think I lost the plot of my response a bit, but my point is that...we were never getting what we wanted because SE doesn’t make these kinds of games anymore and Nomura and the KH dev team probably wouldn’t go backwards and also the UX team were probably the only reason this project got off the ground anyways BECAUSE it was cheap to develop.

So is this a guarantee that if they ever make more of the "period of absence" games, they'll most likely be mobile? That's a huge bummer if so, and makes me hold onto my wallet even harder. It's shut closed concerning KH now, if this is how it's going to be.

How much more money would it have been to develop it as a mid-tier/PS2 era animated game? As you've said most fans would probably have been perfectly fine with it, enough fans bought the handheld games to turn a profit I assume; it would be cheaper to make now more than ever.

I would have taken a graphic novel drawn by Nomura over this "game"

Agree. I wasn't even that invested in the Xehanort game and I'm still disappointed. I really feel for fans who have been waiting for a Xehanort backstory game for years. That, and it's hugely telling of how this series will roll from now on; an even worse direction than I thought.

 

[SuperSaiyanSora]

What Chaser and Spock said are basically why I feel a Switch exclusive game will never happen.

On another note this also has the perk of all future console games using the same (obviously updated as Unreal updates) engine as 3 going forward. So that'll likely cut costs and dev time a bunch.

And I only see them having one mobile app at a time (as evidence by the fact that they just combined DR into UX as if it were a ReMix collection), so that means a lot less series fragmentation going forward as well.

So in conclusion:

Of course I hope the next mobile game has a new everything. There's so many ways a mobile KH could go, like a semi-3D world in the vein of Castelia City in Pokemon B&W. The possibilities are endless!

Yeah. It's funny how things go. People want all the games to be on one platform, berate the hell outta Nomura and Square for the multi-platform releases... And then ask for a Switch exclusive game after all of that lol. Never mind the fact that Square is clearly pretty biased to PlayStation (especially when it comes to KH releases).

I'm personally not bothered by a lot of what people are saying, because I guarantee you... Let five years have gone by, and people eventually would've said, "We need Xehanort's backstory, I don't even care if it's in a mobile phone game, just tell me the story!" I've seen this all play out before, and I'm grateful we're getting anything at all, because we really could've gotten nothing for Xehanort.

A console game for Xehanort would be cool, but resources are a thing, and Nomura did say already that he couldn't make the game before. He was right to say that the saga wouldn't end if he did it, because think about how much time that would take. You'd have that game, the side game before KH4, and presumably KH4 after that. Even though there's four teams, that's still a lot to deal with. If the Xehanort game came first, that's more time waiting on what's coming next. With all that to consider, a mobile game's the easiest to get out the door.

...And we don't even really know what's coming in Dark Road, literally we only have a couple of screenshots and maybe a paragraph of information. If that. It already looks different enough from UX, but because the art style is the same, the characters are in a desert, and people see the cards, it's all of a sudden the worst thing in the world. I'm gonna wait before I get upset, because I know how tides change when more information comes in.

why do we keep bringing Nomura into this? I know I said “the Ux team convinced Nomura to do this” but I was paraphrasing how they proposed the concept to him for approval.

Cause he's the face of the operation, so I guess it's just easy to blame him instead of considering the fact that one man isn't an island, and he can't just do whatever it is he wants -- the man is still an employee at Square Enix and despite how much reputation he has, he still has to run things by the higher ups. If he had as much freedom as people think he does, Versus XIII would've been released, his vision for DDD's original ending would've stayed, and KH3 would've come out in November-December 2018. And that's not even bringing Disney into the conversation.

Let's not forget that he's also the Director for the Final Fantasy VII Remake... Which has a WAY less margin of error compared to any Kingdom Hearts game to date.

I'm not saying Nomura always makes great decisions, but people can't put everything on him. There's literal teams of people in this company that have business meetings to discuss stuff like what to do next.

 

[GreyouTT]

So basically, "Kingdom Hearts will never have any spin-off games that focus on other stories unless they are mobile." That's... really disappointing. Like at the very least, a Xehanort game, a Union Cross on console, and DDD2 shouldn't be too much to ask for a series that I feel like should be expanding beyond its mobile limitations to gain new fans and new ground in its story but also in the media and gaming landscape before KH4 gets started but I guess it is. And I understand why, it's not like I expect those things to happen all at once but still... I guess it just shows that gaming isnt same as how it was in the early 2000s and 10s.

Man, I feel old...

Well.. at least I hope DDD 2 still happens, which I think it will. It just sucks that a console version of UX seems incredibly unlikely even though at this point, it's in pretty high demand and would do a lot to tie people over between DDD 2 and KH4.

This whole thing is just... ugh. I hate it. I just want KH to be the best it can be. And I dont want to I sh*t on anyone who is perfectly fine with this but it just feels like the only thing fans can do is compromise or get beaten down so much by disappointment that they just have to accept outcomes they don't like deep down while Sqaure Enix and Noruma just do whatever they want regardless they know fans will buy anyways. Even when they do listen, like with Re: Mind, it's not executed in a way that's completely satisfying.

I'm still excited by things for the future of this series. I'm excited for the foretellers arc, I think MoM is the perfect villian and breathe of fresh air from Xehanort and I hope (even thought it's a pipe dream but I'm holding out hope) thag DDD 2 is the Destiny trio game come true but ...a lot of things about the series right now is very demoralizing and I haven't felt this way about the series at all since I've played it back in 2006. Things have disappointed me before but not to this extent were I feel very... sad about how this is going to turn out.

But... maybe that's a bit dramatic. Again, I'm still excited about certain aspects of the series and I still REALLY like KH3 and I love its ending. And in a lot of ways, I do believe Noruma still cares at some level but now... I can kind of feel the burnout; and maybe that's due ti the way this company as treatws him and the fact that it feels like he hasn't a break in a almost a decade but the passion feels almost completely gone... and if that's the case, maybe Noruma should... I don't know, take a break? Maybe let someone else take charge for this new arc? And again, all this might not be on Noruma entirely and it would be foolishly to think so. Sqaure as a company hasn't been making good decisions in the past decade and a change in leaders may have done some good in some cases but in others, a lot decisions feel like a step backwards that is willing to sacrifice creativity for monetary gain and prioritizing certain series over others.

I don't know, I just love Kingdom Hearts. There is so much potential in this series for it to be one of the best franchises in gaming. I just dont want it to crash and burn due to its creative heads feeling burnout and not putting enough into a franchise that deserves more due to how unique its story and even its characters are.

And again, I'm not saying that Nomura and his dev team don't do enough. I don't want to sound ungrateful but Kingdom Hearts really needs that EXTRA push to become more then what it is right now. KH3 made a lot of good steps forward for the franchise but it also created a lot of steps backwards; some due to probably laziness and cost but also some that isn't really there own fault.

And of course, I'm not in the production, so it's hard to say if that's the ENTIRE case. There are just certain things that even Noruma can't control but either way, it doesn't look all that great from the outside and THIS just felt like a giant punch in the face because I strongly feel like this is going to backfire so hard.

I think ya might be jumping the gun a bit. I'm pretty sure a Re:X will happen eventually (parts of Daybreak are even already made), and nothing's a foregone conclusion. There's also that sweet HD Collection money to be had from a Days/Coded/X collection which is like hanging a carrot in front of the SE exec's faces.

Plus like I said they have the overall engine ready to go, that shaves at least a year or two off the development time and saves a ton of money (why do you think AC and CoD can come out so quickly? It's not just the multiple teams, I'll tell ya that!).

Also they just got a new team, hard to say there is no push when there's news like that. >.>

 

[MrFranklin95]

I think ya might be jumping the gun a bit. I'm pretty sure a Re:X will happen eventually (parts of Daybreak are even already made), and nothing's a foregone conclusion. There's also that sweet HD Collection money to be had from a Days/Coded/X collection which is like hanging a carrot in front of the SE exec's faces.

Plus like I said they have the overall engine ready to go, that shaves at least a year or two off the development time and saves a ton of money (why do you think AC and CoD can come out so quickly? It's not just the multiple teams, I'll tell ya that!).

Also they just got a new team, hard to say there is no push when there's news like that. >.>

I probably am. I really hope it does happen. I guess the impact of this news has made me seriously pessimistic about the teams for KH projects are going to bother to do if this is how they're going to treat the game for their main antagonists and think ,"No, this isnt gonna exhaust fans at all"

But you're right, they do have everything they need to make other projects that are more worthwhile then a Xehanort game. There's still hope but I won't lie and day this didnt dampen my excitement a bit. I would've rather they just not do this at all but who knows? Maybe the story is worthwhile.

Besides, DDD 2 is still likely to happen with Kairi as the main character, so I'm more excited about that then anything. Honestly as long as they give that, I'm a happy camper. I honestly can't say if UX on console will happen but like you said, it is still possibility. And it would be a great move but would also depend on the gameplay if do it but I see no reason for them to not use KH3 gameplay with some new added combos and abilities. Plus, creator creation on console? Oh boy, the possibilities!!

 

[OneDandelion]

It is important to point out that the shift wasn’t 10 years ago, the shift started in 2013 post-KH3D. This is when Yoichi Wada stepped down and Yosuke Matsuda came in as president of Square Enix. He eliminated pretty much all mid-tier development at SE to focus on AAA and mobile developments.

AAA games ARE beasts to develop. An average development cycle for any AAA game is five years, although some developers will cut corners to cut that down into 3 years or even 2. Developers with tried and true development processes and tons of available assets can probably also accomplish 2-3 years.

The problem mostly stems in the fact that SE isn’t really making mid-tier games anymore. If they do, they see it as a huge gamble. Blockbusters and mobile games are easier to make money off of.

What qualifies as "mid-tier" at SE though? I wouldn't call KH1, KH2 and BBS mid tier games and they came out at a rapid pace compared to what we've got over the last 8 years. They have still published and developed a lot of games between 2012-2020 - they've even made room for some experimental obscure stuff like Dragon Quest Builders. And they've been pushing remakes like crazy. Even if you don't want to count the number of square enix subsidiary companies, SE has a tremendous number of resources. As far as I can tell it could only mean that SE has not wanted to invest in KH despite it being a successful franchise, or that Nomura has been busy on other projects and they trust no one else to develop a KH game in his stead.

But the equally big issue is that the games that are produced don't even have a good amount of new content. DDD offered us a couple hours of obscure content and KH3 only gave us maybe 2 hours of actual plot development, being generous. KHUX is the personification of this series over the last 8+ years where the story has been placed on an IV drip and we're expected to wait while they shove remakes, dlc, and $15 weekly passes to their mobile gotcha game in our faces.

Maybe I was too harsh on Nomura and maybe others are right to say "he hasn't taken a break since 2001". Maybe his creativity is being stifled. I've bought all the games and I'd like to think those things are true but when you develop a failure like KH3, make me pay half the games value for mediocre DLC, misrepresent the truth that there are two "new" games in development with KHDR. how can anyone be expected to keep faith? I know people like Xehanort, but why would anyone want to sacrifice the progress of the story of this series when it's already taking forever to get anywhere.

I never thought I would want the KH series to end, but here we are. If AAA games mean that I have to sacrifice storytelling for DLC and gotcha games then gaming as a story telling medium is dead. I'd rather KH was a novel at this point, maybe then the characters other than Sora would get some development as well.

What Chaser and Spock said are basically why I feel a Switch exclusive game will never happen.

I would bet money the next game will be on switch lol. Any lore heavy/side game is going to be produced on the cheapest most accessible level possible and that is 100% the switch right now.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

What Chaser and Spock said are basically why I feel a Switch exclusive game will never happen.

A Switch exclusive game can happen. The Switch has been selling like hot pancakes and now more than ever with the Lite. If not, then a multiplat can happen.

Of course I hope the next mobile game has a new everything. There's so many ways a mobile KH could go, like a semi-3D world in the vein of Castelia City in Pokemon B&W. The possibilities are endless!

That depends on mobile gaming trends. I imagine that, when they were brainstorming and conceptualizing KHUx, they were trying to see how well they could convert the KHx experience into KHUx. I imagine they observed mobile gaming trends and tried to mix and match what were the best combinations.

Also, it would be interesting to see how Dark Road performs. If it does well, there may be a possibility that Nomura may be more than inclined to put untold stories he wants to write via this format.

 

[GreyouTT]

I would bet money the next game will be on switch lol. Any lore heavy/side game is going to be produced on the cheapest most accessible level possible and that is 100% the switch right now.

It's really not that much cheaper. The Switch is an HD console just like the others, and Nintendo themselves underestimated just how much more money, time, and work goes into making HD games (granted most of them learned this on the WiiU, but some had to learn it on the Switch). Not to mention it requires switching to an older version of Unreal that actually works on it and backporting all the stuff from 3's current version. All of that ups the costs a lot.

A Switch exclusive game can happen. The Switch has been selling like hot pancakes and now more than ever with the Lite. If not, then a multiplat can happen.

Multiplat is what I would bank more on tbh. I would be genuinely surprised if a Switch exclusive game happened.

That depends on mobile gaming trends. I imagine that, when they were brainstorming and conceptualizing KHUx, they were trying to see how well they could convert the KHx experience into KHUx. I imagine they observed mobile gaming trends and tried to mix and match what were the best combinations.

Also, it would be interesting to see how Dark Road performs. If it does well, there may be a possibility that Nomura may be more than inclined to put untold stories he wants to write via this format.

The trending games are pretty varied in terms of gameplay:

In the top 10 alone there's four 3D action games, two tactics games, and three 2D/2.5D games, and Yu-Gi-Oh. Not to mention Honkai at 11, which is a 3D beat 'em up.

 

[Sign]

I've bought all the games and I'd like to think those things are true but when you develop a failure like KH3, make me pay half the games value for mediocre DLC, misrepresent the truth that there are two "new" games in development with KHDR. how can anyone be expected to keep faith?

It's pretty easy considering none of this is actual fact.

 

[MATGSY]

It's really not that much cheaper. The Switch is an HD console just like the others, and Nintendo themselves underestimated just how much more money, time, and work goes into making HD games (granted most of them learned this on the WiiU, but some had to learn it on the Switch). Not to mention it requires switching to an older version of Unreal that actually works on it and backporting all the stuff from 3's current version. All of that ups the costs a lot.

Multiplat is what I would bank more on tbh. I would be genuinely surprised if a Switch exclusive game happened.

Pretty much the only way an exclusive happens is if Nintendo's publishing it themselves. Which isn't entirely implausible considering DQXIS or MUA3.

 

[OneDandelion]

It's really not that much cheaper. The Switch is an HD console just like the others, and Nintendo themselves underestimated just how much more money, time, and work goes into making HD games (granted most of them learned this on the WiiU, but some had to learn it on the Switch). Not to mention it requires switching to an older version of Unreal that actually works on it and backporting all the stuff from 3's current version. All of that ups the costs a lot.

As opposed to creating brand new assets for a AAA PS4 game, developing for the switch is cheap. You seem to be exaggerating the time and effort it takes to reduce poly count on models "backporting" stuff from KH3. If they are designing brand new worlds, characters, heartless, etc all of that stuff will be easier to develop for the switch from scratch. A ridiculous amount of money goes into the character/environmental details of AAA PS4/XBOX1 games and the gameplay often suffers for it. Look at Anthem as one of the most recent examples of this.

It's pretty easy considering none of this is actual fact.

Nope, just a popular opinion. I loved the boss fights, but that doesn't make up for the shitty pace of the story progression and nonexistent character development.

No one can argue KH3 didn't perform well with respect to sales, it's just rather insulting when all of that money as well as their scummy gotcha game sales is now being funneled into the FF7 remake project instead of rewarding a long loyal fan base with the content they deserve. Instead we're like hamsters in a cage desperately trying to lick the last bits of water left in our little hamster water bottles trying to draw meaning from symbols on toys in toy box lmao. but I digress, you're right, it's just my opinion

 

[GreyouTT]

As opposed to creating brand new assets for a AAA PS4 game, developing for the switch is cheap. You seem to be exaggerating the time and effort it takes to reduce poly count on models "backporting" stuff from KH3. If they are designing brand new worlds, characters, heartless, etc all of that stuff will be easier to develop for the switch from scratch. A ridiculous amount of money goes into the character/environmental details of AAA PS4/XBOX1 games and the gameplay often suffers for it. Look at Anthem as one of the most recent examples of this.

I think you misread my post. I'm talking about the engine when it comes to back-porting from KH3. The actual code, nothing else. Code written using an engine that doesn't support a console is not gonna work in an older version that does. It's going to need re:coding and lots of changes.

The point before that was that making an HD console game takes more effort than a SD handheld game. The Switch is an HD console, and models/graphics made for it will still take the same amount of time as other HD consoles. So the excuse that it's cheaper goes out of the window.

 

[OneDandelion]

I think you misread my post. I'm talking about the engine when it comes to back-porting from KH3. The actual code, nothing else. Code written using an engine that doesn't support a console is not gonna work in an older version that does. It's going to need re:coding and lots of changes.

The point before that was that making an HD console game takes more effort than a SD handheld game. The Switch is an HD console, and models/graphics made for it will still take the same amount of time as other HD consoles. So the excuse that it's cheaper goes out of the window.

I still don't understand. The switch is capable of using Unreal Engine 4, what code needs to be rewritten? it's all using C++ and uscript as far as I know so I don't think they'd have to redo code on any assets they're porting over. And even assuming it was an older version of UE4 that didn't use the same code for some weird reason I don't think they're changing the code enough that it would "up the cost a lot"

And just because a console is "HD" doesn't mean it's hard to develop for. If you're just talking about resolution that's a one man job, there are plenty of HD indie games. The difference between the switch and the ps4 is the level of detail and the amount of stuff they can simultaneously fill the screen with. Switch is easier to develop for because people don't expect AAA PS4 level graphics on the switch. Obviously it still takes more time than a handheld game, but making a game on switch rather than PS4 would probably shave a year off development time at least and save money

 

[GreyouTT]

I still don't understand. The switch is capable of using Unreal Engine 4, what code needs to be rewritten? it's all using C++ and uscript as far as I know so I don't think they'd have to redo code on any assets they're porting over. And even assuming it was an older version of UE4 that didn't use the same code for some weird reason I don't think they're changing the code enough that it would "up the cost a lot"

Libraries and references can be different between versions. They'd have to scroll through the code and take out anything that references something from a newer version and change it to fit the old one (not to mention the bug testing). But yeah, I guess it wouldn't be too different. And thinking about it, I can't remember where I read about the current version of UE4 not supporting Switch nor can I find something about it. Sooo that's a whoops on my part, sorry about that.

EDIT: I know what got me confused. I was thinking about IdTech. The engine Id games use. The recent version of that has no Switch support. I am once again sorry for my mix up.

But, there is also the fact that they would have to change things to accommodate the Switch's different architecture, which would require changing code. Then there's testing for that code, and so on. There's more to the process of switching consoles than just making the changes or a simple copy and paste. That's all also using development time for a new game.

And just because a console is "HD" doesn't mean it's hard to develop for. If you're just talking about resolution that's a one man job, there are plenty of HD indie games. The difference between the switch and the ps4 is the level of detail and the amount of stuff they can simultaneously fill the screen with. Switch is easier to develop for because people don't expect AAA PS4 level graphics on the switch. Obviously it still takes more time than a handheld game, but making a game on switch rather than PS4 would probably shave a year off development time at least and save money

The difference isn't that big my man. The Switch is between the WiiU and PS4, and the WiiU was already somewhat more powerful than the 360. Just look at DOOM, OBSERVER, and Warframe comparisons.


Heck, here's Hellblade:

The cost would not change much, if at all.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

Unreal Engine 4 has an optimization engine for Nintendo Switch. They could develop a game that isn't very graphically and performance demanding on then optimize it for the Switch.

 

[MATGSY]

Unreal Engine 4 has an optimization engine for Nintendo Switch. They could develop a game that isn't very graphically and performance demanding on then optimize it for the Switch.

If Witcher 3 can get ported, I'm half-convinced KH3 can at this rate.

 

[Ballad of Caius]

If Witcher 3 can get ported, I'm half-convinced KH3 can at this rate.

Debatable. I think a lot of graphical and performance sacrifices would have to be made. And with the fact that many Nintendo Switch owners also have a console, it would be a bit redundant to make all of that sacrifice.

If rumors of a Switch Pro are true, then that could raise the probabilities of a KH3 port.

 

[MATGSY]

Debatable. I think a lot of graphical and performance sacrifices would have to be made. And with the fact that many Nintendo Switch owners also have a console, it would be a bit redundant to make all of that sacrifice.

If rumors of a Switch Pro are true, then that could raise the probabilities of a KH3 port.

I'm doubtful of a Switch Pro, "slightly more powerful Switch" isn't really a super compelling selling point. PS4 Pro didn't sell itself on being more powerful nor did XB1X, they were both sold on being 4K machines specifically. New 3DS wasn't sold on being a more powerful 3DS, it was sold on improved 3D with wider viewing angles. So what exactly would be the hook for an upgrade Switch? 1080p in handheld? Faster load times? Joycons no longer drifting? IDK, nothing comes to mind as marketable that's also feasible in the switch's lifetime. The improved battery is about as much as I'd expect for an advanced model.

In any event, the main problem with an "exclusive" Switch game is that there's no inherent reason for it to not be multi-platform. At which point more people buy the Playstation version instead & complain online that Switch held it back.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

No one can argue KH3 didn't perform well with respect to sales, it's just rather insulting when all of that money as well as their scummy gotcha game sales is now being funneled into the FF7 remake project instead of rewarding a long loyal fan base with the content they deserve. Instead we're like hamsters in a cage desperately trying to lick the last bits of water left in our little hamster water bottles trying to draw meaning from symbols on toys in toy box lmao. but I digress, you're right, it's just my opinion

Now wait a minute, are we forgetting about this statement by Nomura?

Will you tell us about any plans for future KH projects?
"We still need some time with regards to mainline Kingdom Hearts, but first up the KH UX team will have a surprising announcement tomorrow. Aside from the KH3 and KH UX teams, we actually have two new teams in operation, and from them, one title will be coming surprisingly soon".

This right here completely contradicts your statement.