I'm officially on Kingdom Hearts IV news watch.
I've alluded to it in the past, but I'm a huge Kingdom Hearts fan. I'd consider it probably my favorite non-Nintendo franchise. So ever since it was announced a couple months ago that this year's D23, Disney's big annual fan event, would feature a panel on the Kingdom Hearts series, I've been eyeing this weekend with intrigue.
The announcement came right off the heels of the shocking reemergence of Kingdom Hearts IV, currently my most anticipated upcoming game, in this year's June Nintendo Direct of all places after 4 years of minimal updates, which salvaged an otherwise hoo-hum Direct for me personally. And while this panel has never been stated to feature news on the franchise, it also wasn't ever deconfirmed. So, I started hoping we may just get some snippet of new information out of this panel, though I kept my expectations tempered.
However, as we've gotten closer and closer to the panel, which occurs tomorrow, August 15th, 2026, at 4:30PM PT/7:30PM ET, hype for this panel among Kingdom Hearts fans has been drumming up more and more, and has now reached something of a fever pitch on the eve of the event. And, dang it, I'm letting myself get caught up in the hype, as something's happened that has me quite confident that we're gonna get SOME kind of news out of this panel. If you read the title of this post, you already know what it is.
From what I understand, not every event from D23 is being streamed, but we learned a few days ago that the Kingdom Hearts panel will be streamed live to YouTube tomorrow evening on a couple channels, including the official Kingdom Hearts channel (duh) and The Game Awards channel. This says to me that there is something in this panel that they want the fans to see beyond the retrospective deep-dive that's being advertised. Whether this is a new trailer, gameplay or story details, a new Disney world reveal, or something else, I have no idea, but I just have this gut feeling that there's gonna be something.
It's entirely possible that we come away with nothing, and all this hype was for naught. Or, worse, they announce Sora for Fortnite and nothing else. So I'm trying to keep my expectations tempered, but I can't help but get excited at the prospect of more news just over two months after the Nintendo Direct trailer. Hopefully it would suggest the game is closer to release than we thought. Of course, I don’t want the game to be rushed out, but if it could get finished and ready to release next year, y’know, before Sony enacts Discmageddon, that would be ideal. I’d actually be really disappointed if I could never own a physical PS5 copy of the game.
I’d love to see a new world revealed, which would also be the first world revealed for the game. Two trailers in and 4 years after reveal, that’s one element of IV we know nothing about despite it being one of the most iconic staples of the series, with footage focusing almost exclusively on the realistic city of Quadratum.
There’s a ton of Disney properties I’d love to see represented in KHIV, chief among them Marvel and Star Wars, but also Moana, The Incredibles, Coco, as well as some worlds from previous games that I’d love to see expanded upon, like Wonderland and Neverland.
If you want to check out the stream for yourself, here’s a couple links you can follow:
But! That’s not all, as today there have been some rumors and rumblings going around that there may be some Kingdom Hearts news at D23 as soon as tonight!
Now, do take this with a grain of salt as it is a rumor, but we’ll know within hours of writing so I thought I’d bring it up.
It comes from X user “DanielRPK”, who claims simply that there will be a Kingdom Hearts announcement at D23 today. No clarification as to where this might happen, but I’ve seen many people point to the ‘Disney Entertainment Showcase’, which happens tonight at 7PM PT/10PM ET, as a possible spot. From what I can gather, it doesn’t seem like this one will be live-streamed, so, if you’re curious, you can check out this live blog from SlashFilm once the showcase begins.
RPK goes on to speculate on what the announcement could be, throwing out the ideas of Coco being a world in IV, or a movie or TV show adaptation. Any of these would be super exciting, as though I’ve never watched Coco in its entirety, its aesthetic and themes would make for an awesome Kingdom Hearts world as far as I’m concerned. And if it were an adaptation, that would be really cool too. I’ve loved watching the increase in video game adaptations over the past decade or so, so adding Kingdom Hearts to the pile would be sweet, and make a lot of sense. And you just know they’d find a way to make it canon to the game’s storyline.
Again, take all of this with a grain of salt. There’s a good chance nothing happens tonight, and that’s okay, as tomorrow’s panel is shaping up to be the main event for KH fans regardless. I’ll reiterate, it’s entirely possible we get nothing, as nothing has been promised, but if my gut feeling is correct… then hopefully we’ll have something substantial to talk about very soon.
This will either be an incredibly exciting or incredibly disappointing weekend for Kingdom Hearts fans such as myself, but if anything DOES happens, I’ll be here to cover it as soon as possible!
