The wait for the much-anticipated Kingdom Hearts III is by no means over, but now at least we know when it will be.
Within the past few days, Amazon has listed Kingdom Hearts III on its site for pre-order with the release date “December 31st, 2015.”
Square Enix will likely move that date next year to coincide with the holiday shopping season, but the placeholder date at least gives fans confirmation that, barring any further setbacks, the title will arrive in 2015, a full ten years after Kingdom Hearts II debuted in Japan.
What We Know So Far
Recent news about Kingdom Hearts III, however scant, has pointed to director Tetsuya Nomura and his team making significant progress on the project.
It began back in June 2013, when Nomura confirmed in a short teaser at E3 that the game was in development alongside Final Fantasy XV. In October 2013 at D23 Expo Japan, we saw about 90 seconds of new gameplay.
While the developers chose not to speak about KH3 at E3 2014, we got a treat in a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix, the last minute of which has a cryptic message (and may also be the intro for Kingdom Hearts III):
Kingdom Hearts III Developments Since E3 2014
After a few more months of radio silence, two final developments have surfaced. First, a Square Enix statement in September announced Tetsuya Nomura is no longer director for FFXV and will be working on KH3 full-time, indicating that the latter project has gained steam and won’t be languishing in development. And this past month, Nomura told Japanese magazine Famitsu that the title will use the Unreal Engine 4, instead of Square Enix’s own Luminus engine.
So now that Amazon has set the first somewhat-definitive date for Kingdom Hearts III, all fans can do is what we’ve been doing: wait.
What’s another 14 months, anyhow?
