It's hard to say how much time is left until Kingdom Hearts 4 releases. Announced during the series’ 20th anniversary in April 2022, the game has been largely radio-silent since, with the largest burst of news coming recently. Rebounding off the cancellation of Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, a mobile entry announced at the same event, a collage of Kingdom Hearts 4 images was released on social media for fans to analyze. What this meant for further news in the immediate future was unclear, but at least there is plenty to glean from this particular news drop.
Several details among the images, like two colored lights approaching what the captions call a Darkside or a close-up of a telephone, are too enigmatic to be interpreted yet, but others are more clear. Kingdom Hearts 4’s new “Build” menu option is still visible, this time in both English and Japanese text, and it appears that all the Heartless will be taking new forms to match KH4’s more realistic art style. Most notable, however, is what appears to be a screenshot of a playable King Mickey platforming section. It's surprising to already have confirmation of a playable character other than Sora, though, admittedly, that's not a rare occurrence.
Kingdom Hearts: 8 Best Characters, Ranked
The Kingdom Hearts series is home to an array of great original characters, but these are arguably the best of them all.
Kingdom Hearts Games Where Other Characters Briefly Step In
Technically speaking, Kingdom Hearts 1 is the only game in the series where Sora, and only Sora, is playable. A brief stint in Hollow Bastion sees control switch to Sora’s Heartless, but that's still Sora. Otherwise, Kingdom Hearts has several methods for letting other heroes take the reins, starting with giving them short bursts of focus. Dying in Kingdom Hearts 2 could prompt Mickey Mouse to jump in, while a certain attack in the final Xemnas fight switched control over to Riku. KH3 has a couple of sequences spent as Riku and Aqua, but that's all for this style of character switching.
Kingdom Hearts Entries Played Entirely As Other People
There's also a fair share of Kingdom Hearts games entirely devoted to other heroes, with Sora now taking the backseat. Kingdom Hearts’ major mobile game Kingdom Hearts Union Cross employed a custom player avatar, while its sequel Dark Road followed a younger Xehanort. Birth By Sleep stars Aqua, Ventus, and Terra, and Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage lets Aqua fly solo. Most impressive is 358/2 Days, which only features Roxas in its story mode, but the entire Organization XIII and some of Sora’s friends in Mission Mode. Sora himself can only be unlocked by 100%-ing the story.
Kingdom Hearts Titles With Other Protagonists Joining Sora
Characters getting to share the spotlight with Sora, either temporarily or across entire games, is fortunately more common. Chain of Memories and its 3D remake started this trend by giving Riku his own campaign in Another Side, Another Story. Dream Drop Distance repeated this, but had Sora and Riku's halves running concurrently instead of sequentially. Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded has a stretch in Olympus Coliseum where Cloud and Hercules join Sora in turn-based combat, while different Melody of Memory songs employ different characters. Finally, Kingdom Hearts 3 ReMind significantly expands the ability to play as other heroes, and gives players several chances to use them instead of Sora.
What This History of Playable Characters Means For Kingdom Hearts 4
As for how Kingdom Hearts’ rotating player characters will manifest in KH4, the first gameplay trailer will likely clarify whether there are any other heroes sharing the playable spotlight with Sora. If there are, they will likely be less prominent than Riku was as a co-protagonist, as Sora needs time to be established in KH4’s new setting of Quadratum. Cutaways to other characters like King Mickey will probably dot the game like they did in Kingdom Hearts 3, allowing Kingdom Hearts 4 to keep things fresh while maintaining focus on Sora’s latest exploits.
- ESRB
- e
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Publisher(s)
- Square Enix
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 5
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Kingdom Hearts
