Summary
- Kingdom Hearts had several cancellations throughout the years, including a 3D fighting game idea and a Birth By Sleep sequel.
- Verum Rex, the fake video game from Kingdom Hearts 3, almost became a real, standalone product.
- Kingdom Hearts Fragmented Keys and Missing-Link were interesting multiplayer projects that got scrapped by Disney and Square Enix respectively.
Kingdom Hearts is a franchise that doesn’t release new games very often and thus, every time one comes out, it feels like a special occasion. Because of this, it's almost inconceivable to think that Square Enix and Disney would cancel or scrap a game in this series, but, weirdly enough, it has happened more than once.
While other popular gaming franchises have had it much worse, the fact that there still exists evidence of Square Enix and Disney c anceling multiple Kingdom Hearts projects is as mind-blowing as it is fascinating, not to mention that it has happened as recently as May 2025. Whether they were based on an idea that just didn’t work or were retooled into an entirely different project, the following five canceled/scrapped Kingdom Hearts games still deserve to be remembered.
5 A Kingdom Hearts Fighting Game
Dissidia: Final Fantasy Was Originally Going To Be A Kingdom Hearts Spin-Off
There aren’t many true Kingdom Hearts spin-offs that do something completely different with their gameplay, but weirdly enough, series’ director Tetsuya Nomura almost made one in the mid-2000s. After developing Kingdom Hearts 2, he realized that it would be interesting to make a fighting game set in a 3D environment, and he began playing with the idea of developing an official Kingdom Hearts fighting game.
However, he eventually scrapped this concept because he felt uncomfortable with making Disney characters fight each other. Thankfully, none of his ideas were wasted because he decided to turn the project into a 3D fighting game set in the Final Fantasy universe instead, which later became Dissidia: Final Fantasy. On top of that, he managed to achieve something similar for the Kingdom Hearts series with the multiplayer mode of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. As beloved as these two games are, fans are still wondering what a 3D Kingdom Hearts fighting game would have looked and played like, seeing as the entire franchise is centered on flashy and over-the-top action.
4 Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep - Volume Two –
Birth By Sleep Almost Got Its Own Sequel, And It Looked Really Intriguing
There’s no denying that Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is one of the most beloved entries in the entire series. Tthis prequel tells the story of three forgotten Keyblade wielders – Ventus, Aqua, and Terra – and it’s set ten years before the start of Sora’s journey. This game completely changed the lore and mythology of the franchise, while also introducing a bunch of lovable new characters that would play an important role in subsequent entries, especially in Kingdom Hearts 3. However, when its enhanced edition, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep Final Mix, was released exclusively in Japan in 2011, fans were quick to find a secret cutscene titled Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep - Volume Two –, which heavily hinted at the idea of an upcoming sequel.
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When Tetsuya Nomura was asked about this sequence in an interview, he stated that he hoped to tell that story someday, since it would show what happened to Aqua while she was trapped inside the Realm of Darkness. Of course, he was eventually able to do exactly that when Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage was included in the Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue collection. However, that’s just a short 2-hour-long experience that also served as a prologue/tech demo for Kingdom Hearts 3, not to mention that it didn’t include some of the story beats that appeared in the original secret movie from 2011 (mainly those that took place concurrently with the plot of Kingdom Hearts 1). While he never confirmed what happened, Nomura most likely wanted to make a full Birth by Sleep sequel for the PSP and/or 3DS, but Square Enix told him to turn it into what later became A Fragmentary Passage.
3 Verum Rex
The Fake Video Game From The Toy Story World Almost Became Real
When Kingdom Hearts 3 players entered the long-awaited Toy Story world called Toy Box, they immediately saw something completely unexpected: a commercial for a fake video game titled Verum Rex, which was clearly supposed to be a parody/tribute to both Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. To make things even weirder, the main character of this game, Yozora, later appeared as the secret boss of Kingdom Hearts 3 ReMind, which confirmed that the world of Verum Rex (also known as Quadratum) is important to the lore of Kingdom Hearts and that it’s going to have an key role in future installments.
However, the weirdest part of this strange chain of events is the fact that Verum Rex almost became a real Square Enix-developed video game of its own that players were going to be able to purchase and experience. After Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced in 2022, Tetsuya Nomura revealed in an interview that he and co-director Yasushi Yasue had heavily considered developing Verum Rex and making it the very next entry in the series. However, since they had also decided to make Kingdom Hearts 4 around the same time, they ultimately scrapped Verum Rex because it would have been difficult to develop two console games at the same time. While it’s possible that this strange project may still become a reality someday, it seems that Nomura is already implementing most of his concepts and ideas into Kingdom Hearts 4.
2 Kingdom Hearts Fragmented Keys (Kingdom Hearts Online)
A Weird Multiplayer Project That Square Enix Had No Involvement With
Back in the mid-to-late 2010s, reports about a canceled Kingdom Hearts game, simply known as Kingdom Hearts Fragmented Keys, began appearing all over the internet. This was apparently going to be an online multiplayer experience for mobile devices that would have featured worlds based on popular IPs that (at the time) had never appeared before in the series, like Frozen, Tangled, Wreck-it-Ralph, and even Star Wars. Fans were obviously intrigued by this scrapped project. Fortunately, for them, some people who had worked on its development began uploading never-before-seen footage and concept art to the internet in early 2025.
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Fragmented Keys (also known as Kingdom Hearts Online) was a project that StudioEX proposed to Disney back in 2012 and, despite making some decent progress on it (with the help of at least four other studios), the company eventually canceled it in 2014. Neither Disney nor StudioEX gave a proper explanation as to why Fragmented Keys was scrapped, but it may have been due to the fact that Square Enix—the gaming giant that had previously made every other Kingdom Hearts title—was not involved in its development in any way. It may have also happened because multiplayer online games for mobile devices were not as big or profitable back in the early 2010s as they are now, so Disney may not have believed in the project just because of that. Needless to say, while the concept of Fragmented Keys sounds interesting and some of its Disney worlds would have been fun to experience, some of its other aspects, like its art style and character design, feel way too out of place in this franchise. Nevertheless, Disney and Square Enix eventually experimented with the concept of an online multiplayer Kingdom Hearts game with the releases of Kingdom Hearts χ and Kingdom Hearts Union χ.
1 Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link
Another Canceled Multiplayer Game That Some Fans Even Got To Try Out
During the celebration of Kingdom Hearts’ 20th Anniversary back in 2022, Square Enix formally announced two brand-new games: the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 4 and another mobile title called Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, which was going to continue the plot of the previous multiplayer entries in the series, Union χ and Dark Road. However, the most interesting part of this announcement was that Missing-Link would be the first game of its kind to be in full 3D instead of using cartoony 2D character models and environments.
Most things about Missing-Link looked and sounded really promising; its beautiful graphics, steampunk setting, a narrative that would reveal exciting new things about the Kingdom Hearts timeline, and its dynamic 3D combat system. However, one specific aspect didn’t resonate very well with most fans: it would be an augmented reality game that relied heavily on the player’s location, similarly to Pokemon GO. On top of that, Union χ and Dark Road were delisted from online stories in 2024, so many Kingdom Hearts fans started to question if relegating a plot-important mainline entry to mobile devices was even a good idea.
Nevertheless, Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link received two different closed betas in 2023, and those who experienced the game were seemingly satisfied with its presentation and gameplay. Weirdly enough, after running those closed betas, Square Enix didn't reveal anything else about this title for over two years, eventually missing its promised 2024 release and delaying it to 2025. Unfortunately, on May 14, 2024, Square Enix formally announced that it had canceled the development of Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link because it had “determined that it would be difficult to offer a service that players would find satisfactory.” Considering that Missing-Link’s story was going to be important for future installments (including Kingdom Hearts 4), fans are now wondering what Nomura and Square Enix are going to do with the game’s narrative, characters, worlds and assets, but there’s always a possibility that they will either retool it into a new game or implement everything into Kingdom Hearts 4.
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