In celebration of its 20th anniversary, Square Enix officially announced the development of Kingdom Hearts 4 with a teaser trailer. Fans worldwide were excited to hear of a new mainline game so close after the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 and its subsequent DLC Re Mind.
Following the release of the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer, fans could not help but feel reminiscent of the canceled Final Fantasy Versus 13 game. Various breakdowns of the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer ensued, convincing fans more and more that the worlds of Versus 13 and Kingdom Hearts are coming together – at least, in essence.
What Could Have Been Final Fantasy Versus 13
For the uninitiated, Final Fantasy Versus 13 was a project spearheaded by the creator and director of the Kingdom Hearts series, Tetsuya Nomura. The game was supposed to be a companion game to Final Fantasy 13 and a part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy series, but production delays and difficulties arose. Final Fantasy 13's production was prioritized, leading many of those working on Versus 13 to work on the main game instead.
Slowly but surely, Final Fantasy 13 became a part of a completely different storyline – the Lightning Saga. This threw Versus 13 and its accompanying universe up in the air, but Nomura was determined to see his project through. Then, there was the fact that the game engine used for Final Fantasy 13 – Crystal Tools – was deemed "practically unusable" for the ideas of Versus 13. Crystal Tools was not powerful enough for the open-world ideas of Nomura for Versus 13.
A new game engine had to be built from scratch, leading to the creation of Luminous Studio, which Square Enix eventually used to develop the rebranded Final Fantasy 15. The studio took Nomura off the development team, and in 2012, Versus 13 was quietly canceled. While Noctis and company were still used as characters in Final Fantasy 15, the story of Versus 13 was taken completely off the table.
Originally announced at E3 back in 2006, the trailer mentioned that Versus 13 was part of a "fantasy based in reality," a theme seen heavily within the gameplay of Kingdom Hearts 3 and Re Mind with the introduction of the "fictional reality" of Quadratum. The narrative that the canceled Versus 13 has been injected into the world of Kingdom Hearts was solidified, with fans absolutely convinced.
The similarities between the character design of Yozora to Noctis from Versus 13 did not go unnoticed by fans. Even the secret scene shown after defeating Yozora in the Re Mind DLC was practically the same as that of the first Versus 13 trailer featuring Noctis, frame-by-frame. If the player loses to Yozora, Sora becomes crystalized – a prominent theme in the released Final Fantasy 13 game.
Despite the similarities, Nomura continues to deny the merging of the Versus 13 and Kingdom Hearts worlds. Instead, he had commented on how Noctis is cherished as if the fictional character were his "youngest son."
The Kingdom Hearts 4 Trailer
In the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer, it is immediately noticeable how the game looks more akin to a Final Fantasy game than a typical Kingdom Hearts title. The realism given to the character design of Sora and Strelitzia, how Quadratum looks like modern-day Tokyo – these are details that have screamed "Versus 13" to many fans.
Strelitzia's realistic character redesign has drawn parallels to the Versus 13 character Stella, who was cut from the finished Final Fantasy 15 game. Sora's fight scene against the monstrous Heartless felt like a callback to the Versus 13 gameplay trailer where Noctis is seen fighting a Behemoth in the streets of a modern city. The short scene where Sora runs up and through a breaking building was reminiscent of Noctis running through the buildings of Altissia that were being broken apart by Leviathan.
Kingdom Hearts already involves characters from Final Fantasy, as players meet Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka right off the bat on Destiny Islands in the first game. Along the way, more and more Final Fantasy characters pop up to help or hinder the journey of Sora and his friends. Kingdom Hearts 3 was the first in the series to feature absolutely zero Final Fantasy characters. While it might be doubtful that Kingdom Hearts 4 is indeed taking upon the story of Versus 13 as part of the new Lost Master arc, Versus 13 could make a significant impact on Kingdom Hearts 4.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is currently in development.