On November 18, our Japanese peers at Dengeki published a newinterviewwithTetsuya Nomura, where the Director of theÂKingdom Heartsseries most notably brought upPS5andXbox Series X. Celebrating the release ofKingdom Hearts Melody of Memory, the interview mainly focuses on the rhythm game by Square Enix and Indieszero, the music of theKingdom Heartsseries, but also includes Tetsuya Nomura sharing some hints on what’s coming next.Dengeki most notably asked Tetsuya Nomura what kind of game aKingdom Heartsgame developed specifically for next-gen, PS5 and Xbox Series X, would be like. Nomura answered that hypothetically speaking, if Square Enix is making a PS5, Xbox Series XKingdom Heartsgame, it’ll need to be very surprising to compete with other next-gen games.
We translated Tetsuya Nomura’s answer below:
Tetsuya Nomura:“Multiple renowned games have already been announced by famous developers. Supposing we’re making aKHgame for next-gen, we’ll be announcing it after all those other big announcements. So I think we’d need to make that game very surprising, to not loose face in front of these other games. Needless to say, we never announced we’re making aKHgame for PS5 or Xbox Series X, so this is just all suppositions (laughs).”
Who knows what Tetsuya Nomura means by “surprising”. Personally speaking, I’d argue he probably means the first PS5, Xbox Series XKingdom Heartsgame will be surprising on the technical aspect. Graphics, loading times, etc. Perhaps on the gameplay aspect too with something closer to triple A western games, like an open-world game. Without going into generalization, Japanese studios often feel inferior compared to North American and West European studios, wishing they could also do western-like triple A games. You definitely know what I mean if you paid attention to Japanese games during the Wii PS360 era, where many Japanese studios encountered trouble adapting to HD, and many tried to do more western-like games.
Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory, the latest game in the series, is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. It’s most notably the first ever SwitchKHgame. You can grab iton Amazonto support DualShockers. Previously, more games in theKHserieswere teased by Tetsuya Nomura.
