Leaked info from Nomura's extended Famitsu interview

[Sign]

Details from Nomura's extended interview with Famitsu have been leaked: http://ryokutya2089.com/archives/53298

We'll have a separate thread when the interview releases tomorrow, but you can discuss this for now:

• KH4 is being developed with Unreal Engine 5, so the anniversary event may be the only time we see footage in UE4. The next showing should be in UE5.
• Whether or not the Nameless Star will appear in KH4 is a secret. She is originally a VERUM REX character.
• The Foretellers, with the exception of Luxu, have vanished.
• The Lost Masters are simply an opposing force, like Organization XIII.
• Akiko Ishibashi (NTWEWY) joins Nomura and Oka in writing KH4's scenario, making for a three-person team.
• Ruiko Fukuzawa (FFXIV: Heavensward) is working on the scenario for Missing-Link.
• Dark Road is nearing completion, and the two ladies making all of the event scenes are working very hard.
• Missing-Link has a closed beta test scheduled in the fall.
• Development on KH4 is being prioritized and there are no plans to release additional info for a while.

 

[Squood!]

So outside of Fortellers vanish and the scenario writers, the extended interview is pretty much everything we already know.

How are they gonna fill 16 pages

 

[CDD]

Cool, looking forward to the full interview.

 

[Sign]

So outside of Fortellers vanish and the scenario writers, the extended interview is pretty much everything we already know.

How are they gonna fill 16 pages

From the preview, it looks like the bulk of it is an overview of the series and the anniversary event.

I should add to not put too much weight on the Foretellers vanishing atm since the leak lacks context and Nomura may have just been referring to their disappearance after KHX or something.

 

[HakaishinChampa]

Has Nomura had other writers with him in the past? I remember KH1 but I'm not sure about the other games

 

[rokudamia2]

I hope both of them being women helps with writing the female characters.

Has Nomura had other writers with him in the past? I remember KH1 but I'm not sure about the other games

Daisuke Watanabe did work on KH1, Com,KH2,Coded, and BBS. Kazuhige Nojima did work on KH1 and KH2, Tomoco Kanemaki did work on days. Theirs another writer who did work on days but their name escapes me,. Jun Akiyama did work on KH1. And Masaru Oka has done work on every game.

 

[bambii (aka foreteller)]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1519335500511072256

This whole issue re: KH4 vs Verum Rex confuses me. I’d initially assumed Nomura just meant he wasn’t sure what to call the next game, but this new comment seems to further confirm he sees them as 2 entirely separate games. If that’s the case, will Yozora et al be sidelined in KH4? Will we potentially actually get a Verum Rex game after KH4? Give us both

 

[Gandalf-the-Wise]

Seeing that the writers of KH1, CoM, and KH2 are returning for KH4 gives me a little more hope for the story. I have a feeling KH4 at the very least won't be a colossal mess like KH3 ended up being.

 

[Sign]

This whole issue re: KH4 vs Verum Rex confuses me. I’d initially assumed Nomura just meant he wasn’t sure what to call the next game, but this new comment seems to further confirm he sees them as 2 entirely separate games. If that’s the case, will Yozora et al be sidelined in KH4? Will we potentially actually get a Verum Rex game after KH4? Give us both

No, his comments during the event were clear that VR and KHIV are not one-in-the-same. The misunderstandings were... actually caused by the person whose tweet you linked lol, misinterpreting impressions from attendees and mixing together the answers for two different questions.

Q&A 1: Nomura couldn't decide whether to go with KHIV or VR as his next project.
Q&A 2: Devs pointing out that fans are mispronouncing Verum Rex. Fans call it "veram rex" but the devs say it like "veroom rex". The correct way is with the long 'u'.

 

[Alpha Baymax]

• Development on KH4 is being prioritized and there are no plans to release additional info for a while.

This further validates the KHUX remake game, I don't see Dark Road as the only Kingdom Hearts release for 2022.

 

[Chie]

It's just weird that KH4 isn't considered "what all the Verum Rex stuff was teasing" if it takes place in the same setting and that ALL the secret ending stuff in KH3 was about Yozora and Verum Rex. It seemed to be saying "this is the future", and now we have a game in that very setting. If Nomura has two entire stories he's going to tell about this, then I'll wait patiently and happily, but I'd be really, really sad if he had a whole concept for a connected game that wasn't even called "Kingdom Hearts" and was even more heavily tied to Versus XIII and Nomura's personal history with Square, but he never got the chance to make it because everyone asked about Sora and then KH4 introduced even more pressing plot points to follow instead.

 

[Sign]

It's just weird that KH4 isn't considered "what all the Verum Rex stuff was teasing" if it takes place in the same setting and that ALL the secret ending stuff in KH3 was about Yozora and Verum Rex. It seemed to be saying "this is the future", and now we have a game in that very setting.

Wasn't that what most people had assumed anyway? Most of the time when discussions surrounding Yozora and Quadratum arose, it was in the context of a spinoff/side story focusing on these characters, with the assumption Sora and the gang would have their own adventures in that world in the next numbered installment. It's just that their decision to bypass that other game completely and jump straight into KH4 threw us all for a loop.

 

[bambii (aka foreteller)]

Wasn't that what most people had assumed anyway? Most of the time when discussions surrounding Yozora and Quadratum arose, it was in the context of a spinoff/side story focusing on these characters, with the assumption Sora and the gang would have their own adventures in that world in the next numbered installment. It's just that their decision to bypass that other game completely and jump straight into KH4 threw us all for a loop.

Right. Which leaves me wondering how much of the original "Verum Rex" concept is going to be integrated into KH4, as opposed to set aside and saved for a separate future release. It would be seriously weird, though, if Yozora and company didn't play a major role in KH4. My expectation is many of those concepts are now being folded into KH4 and, if Verum Rex is ever actually developed, it may provide some backstory/backtrack chronologically.

 

[Blade1587]

From this I get the feeling that we might still get a Verum Rex game, just that it's coming after KH4.
Hopefully that won't make Yozora's part in KH4 be too incomplete, it has for sure worked well before with Roxas getting such an expanded background in 358/2 days after his debut in KH2

 

[SuperNova]

Glad to see that the issue of KH4 being VR is being cleared up better because some of the fandom still thinks they are one in the same. I was fully expecting a VR game before we got KH4 but now that KH4 is being prioritized something tells me VR is gonna be a backstory/"what happened offscreen in KH4 adventure" type game.

 

[Chie]

Oh yeah, rather than Shin Twewy, it kinda feels more significant to me that Ishibashi wrote for FFXV, considering everything...

 

[Cooper Newton]

Seeing that the writers of KH1, CoM, and KH2 are returning for KH4 gives me a little more hope for the story. I have a feeling KH4 at the very least won't be a colossal mess like KH3 ended up being.

While I personally enjoyed Kingdom Hearts III, I understand why a lot of the fans ended up not liking it. That being said, based on the feedback for NEO: The World Ends With You, it seems Nomura made a really good call in hiring the scenario writer for that game. I also found it a bit ironic that he hired the scenario writer for Final Fantasy XV to help him on this game, considering his history with that game. Anyway, I think the presence of Igarashi could address the issue of the female character representation the series has been dealing with, if done correctly. All we can do is wait and see what the results are.

 

[Sign]

Right. Which leaves me wondering how much of the original "Verum Rex" concept is going to be integrated into KH4, as opposed to set aside and saved for a separate future release. It would be seriously weird, though, if Yozora and company didn't play a major role in KH4. My expectation is many of those concepts are now being folded into KH4 and, if Verum Rex is ever actually developed, it may provide some backstory/backtrack chronologically.

The way they talk about it sounds like Verum Rex is still on the table, but I guess it remains to be seen.

 

[Darkspawn]

I think KH4 could be the video game equivalent of a backdoor pilot episode for Verum Rex. It’ll get us more familiar with the characters and universe while allowing Disney/SE to gauge interest in the concept. Then it’ll become it’s own thing once Sora gets back home.

 

[Elysium]

Seeing that the writers of KH1, CoM, and KH2 are returning for KH4 gives me a little more hope for the story. I have a feeling KH4 at the very least won't be a colossal mess like KH3 ended up being.

I think there will be more work on 4 than 3 and 2, writing-wise, since it needs to lift a new saga.