Update: Added a few addendums after looking into a couple things I wasn't sure of.

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THIS IS WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR!

(Yes I know I'm very late to this shhhh I've been busy)

D23 took place last weekend, and after weeks of rumblings and steadily building hype in the Kingdom Hearts community, we were treated to easily the biggest news drop the franchise has seen since its 20th anniversary. It was a weekend filled with absolutely MASSIVE KH news, including a nearly 4 minute long trailer featuring the first (potentially first two) Disney world revealed for IV, an anime coming to Disney+, and, perhaps most importantly, a release window for Kingdom Hearts IV that they are VERY confident in.

There’s a lot, and I mean a LOT to cover, so let’s not waste any more time and go through everything you need to know from an incredible weekend for the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

Kingdom Hearts is Finally Getting a Long Deserved Anime Adaptation

It all got started last Friday night, during the ‘Disney Entertainment Showcase’. This presentation was focused on upcoming movies and TV shows that Disney has in the works across their way-too-broad entertainment empire. Usually, you wouldn’t expect much video game news to come out of a showcase like this, but, as rumblings prior to the showcase suggested, it was well worth keeping an eye on for Kingdom Hearts fans, as we got a TON out of it.

Before I dive into the KHIV news, I want to touch on another incredibly exciting announcement that was made that feels like a long time coming: Kingdom Hearts is finally getting an anime adaptation! This has felt like such an obvious thing to happen for so long now, and it finally got announced during this presentation, coming soon to both Disney Channel and Disney+! I know I’ll be getting a Disney+ subscription when this drops.

I do find it pretty funny and kind of awesome that it's also coming to Disney Channel. The same network that I used to watch shows like Phineas and Ferb and Good Luck Charlie on will soon be airing Kingdom Hearts. Wild times we're living in.

We don't know a ton about it other than the simple fact that it is, in fact, happening, but Disney describes it as “reimagining the iconic adventure with a brand-new story that will expand on the universe of ‘Kingdom Hearts’” (Variety). I find this statement pretty telling, with the usage of the phrases “brand-new story” and “expand on the universe” suggesting this won’t be an adaptation of any pre-existing game’s story. Instead, I read this as saying this will be a 100% canon story that will be necessary to fully understand what’s going on in the series going forwards. Which is par for the course for Kingdom Hearts at this point. If a piece of Kingdom Hearts media exists, it is almost certainly canon in some way, shape, or form.

They also gave us a glimpse at what the show could look like with this frankly badass keyart showing a character with their Keyblade resting over their shoulder. (Haha, get it, “key”art? Like “key”blade?) At first I thought it was Sora, but I'm not as convinced after looking at it some more and seeking out what others were saying.

Absolutely stunning. If this is what the show is gonna look like, we're in for a treat.

There’s no time frame attached to it other than a vague “Coming Soon”, so there’s not much else we can glean from the information we have at the moment. Still, this is incredibly exciting, and I can’t wait to learn more!

However, as exciting as that is, would you believe me if I told you that was just the appetizer?

The World of Coco Makes its Kingdom Hearts Debut in a Jampacked New Kingdom Hearts IV Trailer

That wasn't all Disney had in store for Kingdom Hearts fans on Friday night, as after talking about the upcoming sequel to Pixar’s Coco, they slyly teased that you’d soon be able to explore the Land of the Dead for yourself as a trailer began. Everything appeared to be plucked straight from the movie at first glance, until the Heartless appeared, prompting our main man Sora to leap into action.

And the crowd went nuts.

No, seriously, go find a crowd reaction video from the event, it's awesome.

Alongside the anime announcement, Kingdom Hearts fans were also treated to a short trailer for Kingdom Hearts IV, finally unveiling the first new Disney world to be featured in the game, being based off of Coco. And my gosh it is absolutely gorgeous.

I do want to mention that one of the rumors ahead of the Entertainment Showcase stated it might be a Coco world OR a TV show/movie. The fact we got both is wild.

We also got a look at a stunning new Keyblade from this world, as well as some combat set pieces, which, yeah, look very much in line with what I’ve come to expect from the series. Meanwhile, the mini-map in the top right corner reveals a vast area that I cannot wait to explore.

The trailer also highlights some greater story beats, highlighting Mickey in Scala ad Caelum’s library, Donald and Goofy consulting Hades (he’s back!!!!! again!!!!!) in their search for Sora, and Sora, back in Quadratum, seeing visions of Donald and Goofy, as well as fighting off a hoard of powerful Heartless alongside characters from the mobile game Kingdom Hearts Union X, which, I’m only now realizing that many of the characters we’ve seen in Quadratum originate from.

Sora specifically calls out the names of Strelitzia (who we saw in the game’s reveal trailer back in 2022 but I’m only now realizing comes from Union X) and Sigurd, who, from my understanding, has a fairly minor role in Union X, but has apparently been confirmed to be the narrator of the reveal trailer for IV?

It is becoming increasingly clear that the events of the mobile games will be incredibly important to the story and lore going forwards. I watched this great video last weekend summarizing the events of Union X and Dark Road in under an hour (which you can check out here), but I’m only learning about the ‘Sigurd is the narrator’ thing now that I’m looking stuff up to confirm what I’m saying as I write this post. Clearly, there’s a ton I need to study up on before IV releases.

Which, speaking of which, the trailer ends with potentially the biggest news of all, a release window for Kingdom Hearts IV! Though, I’ll get to that in a second, as there’s EVEN MORE regarding this trailer, as it was actually a trimmed down version of a nearly 4 minute long trailer that we got to see the entirety of during the much anticipated Deep Dive into Kingdom Hearts panel the night after. And MAN, the full version of this trailer has so much stuff to dissect that I can’t possibly go into everything here, or we’d be here all day. I’ll go over the big stuff, though!

Perhaps the biggest reveal to come out of the extended trailer was that not only will we get to play as King Mickey, which we already knew due to a batch of screenshots released a while back, but, for what I believe is the first time in series history, Donald and Goofy will also be fully playable! That is honestly incredible, and it’s wild it has taken this long, with them being key parts of the core cast. It does make perfect sense for them to finally be upgraded to playable in IV, as they’re largely separated from Sora for the first time in a numbered entry.

Mickey’s gameplay sequence sees him get sucked into a book and forced to explore an incredibly visually interesting world within the book with some really cool looking gameplay gimmicks that make me think of Paper Mario. During the panel, it was mentioned that this area is more puzzle focused, which is really intriguing.

Then, the gameplay we see of Donald and Goofy shows them exploring what appears to be Olympus’s Underworld, what with the presence of Hades and a command list that looks very Hercules themed. So, yes, as has basically become a series tradition at this point, it appears we’ll be once again returning to the world of Hercules for the 5 millionth time. I’m not complaining too much, as the Underworld hasn’t been explored as often, only appearing in KHII to my knowledge. I love KHIII’s version of Olympus, but it didn’t touch the Underworld, so if that’s what IV’s rendition of this world will focus on, I’m way okay with that.

Addendum: Confirmed by the description on the game's store listing across the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation Store, etc, stating "Donald and Goofy head for the Underworld in hopes of finding a clue to his whereabouts." Oh yeah, KHIV has a Nintendo eShop listing. Never thought I'd see the day. The description also teases a new battle mechanic that allows you to "build combos", whatever that means. That just makes me ask: were we not "building" combos in the previous games?

We also see Donald and Goofy arriving in the world of Coco, perhaps suggesting that each world will have parallel storylines, one from Sora’s perspective, and one from Donald and Goofy’s. That would be a great way to get more out of each world and could allow for more characters and locations from each world to get the spotlight in a way that perfectly compliments the overarching narrative.

Towards the end of the trailer, there’s a clip of who I believe to be Xigbar/Luxu based on the voice approaching a character that I can’t quite identify in Quadratum. I thought it might be Riku at first, but upon closer inspection, it looks more like Young Xehanort to me… which, surely that can’t be, right? Then again this IS Kingdom Hearts we’re talking about. Here’s a few shots of the character in question. I’m sure others have already identified him, so I probably look pretty dumb being all confused. Maybe it is Riku and I’m just over thinking it.

Lowkey it is kinda sad that I'm more confident in the identity of the obscured, hooded figure, than the guy whose face we can actually see.

Addendum: So, yes. I am dumb and that is in fact Young Xehanort, which opens up a whole bunch of questions as to why he's in Quadratum. Is this, as Strelitzia put it in the original reveal trailer, his "afterworld" as well? But yeah, due to the drought of content it's been a while since I've been super into Kingdom Hearts, so I have a lot of brushing up to do.

I CAN tell you who undeniably IS Riku, though, as we see what appears to be his arrival in Quadratum at the very end of the trailer, preparing to engage the powerful Heartless we saw at the end of the short version. This being the moment that the ending of Melody of Memory was building up to, this was a pretty hype way to end an incredibly exciting trailer that gave us our best look at Kingdom Hearts IV to date!

But, as I alluded to earlier, that is all without mentioning what I consider the biggest piece of news to come out of D23, that being…

We Have A Release Window!!!

Late 2027. After years of waiting, we FINALLY know the time frame within which Kingdom Hearts IV will be releasing. And while there’s always the slightest possibility it could slip into 2028, the game’s co-director Tai Yasue and series creator Tetsuya Nomura backed the late 2027 release window with a level of confidence that would be really embarrassing in hindsight if it does get pushed, so I’m inclined to believe that we will be playing this game by the end of next year.

This is incredibly exciting for more reasons than it coming sooner than I honestly anticipated. In my July 2026 Monthly Roundup, I briefly mentioned how I was concerned I would never own a truly physical copy of this game on PS5 due to Sony ending disc production at the start of 2028, despite the fact I mainly bought my PS5 in anticipation of Kingdom Hearts IV. Should it, in fact, land in that late 2027 window, it will more than likely receive a physical release on PS5 after all, and could very well be my last ever brand new physical PlayStation game, which is honestly really sad.

Or, y’know, Square Enix could decide to be mean and not do a physical release, which… I would still 100% buy the game at launch but man that would suck.

Beyond that, there’s the fact that the marketing and hype cycle for the game has kicked into gear, and between now and its release late next year, it could show up in ANY presentation. Gamescom ONL, The Game Awards, Summer Game Fest, and any future Nintendo Direct, State of Play, or Xbox Games Showcase could feature a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts IV, and that’s super exciting. There’s likely still many worlds left to unveil, and the 25th anniversary is next year, so I anticipate that this is the first of many times we'll be seeing it in the not too distant future.

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And… that should about do it for the major Kingdom Hearts news to come out of this year’s D23. I went into last weekend with tempered expectations, and ended up having those expectations far surpassed with more news than I could’ve ever asked for.

I would’ve been very satisfied with what we got from the Entertainment Showcase, so the extended trailer debuted during the panel was the cherry on top of an incredible weekend for Kingdom Hearts fans. Speaking of the panel, outside of the trailer, it was pretty entertaining hearing insights into the franchise’s development. There were a couple wink wink nudge nudge moments vaguely teasing elements of IV, such as a role for Maleficent in the game, but other than that, there wasn’t anymore news during the panel. I don’t believe you can watch a replay of the livestream for whatever reason, but I’m sure you can find a reupload of it somewhere if you’re curious.

There is still a lot more I want to dissect regarding the new trailer, but I’ll leave that for another post, as we’d be here all day if I went into every little thing. I already went over more than I had anticipated in this post to begin with.

All that said, I am incredibly excited for both Kingdom Hearts IV and the anime. Last weekend reminded me of how much I do truly love this series, as well as the incredible levels of brainrot I can reach for it. That, and it's just so nice to see this franchise get so much love at an event like D23, showing that Disney is really starting to take the series a lot more seriously. Now, Disney finding the value in a property isn't always necessarily a GOOD thing, but for now, the future of Kingdom Hearts is looking bright!

Buckle up KH fans, the next year is going to be fun!