For over a year now, Disney fans have been able to play alongside iconic Disney characters in the life simulation adventure game Disney Dreamlight Valley. Here, players have been able to go on quests with numerous Disney and Pixar characters to get rid of pesky night thorns and build Disney-themed houses and communities. A big allure of DisneyDreamlight Valley is its wide array of setting and character customization options. However, this customization can be expanded upon by taking inspiration from another Disney video game series: Kingdom Hearts.

Disney Dreamlight Valley Mickey and Merlin in front of castle at night
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Disney Dreamlight Valley and Kingdom Hearts Compared

Throughout Dreamlight Valley’s numerous updates and expansions, several new realms and Star Path events have been released, introducing treasure troves of new customization options. In Dreamlight Valley’s most recent update, Thrills and Frills, players were able to open up their own Boutique shop with Daisy and design their very own clothes. Despite these updates and additions of new realms, including Monster, Inc.’s Scare Floor, however, gamers are still limited to creating a strictly human player character.

Kingdom Hearts’ Character Changes

In Kingdom Hearts, players control Sora, a young boy who travels to various Disney movie-themed worlds as he strives to defeat the rampaging Heartless creatures and save his friends. Sora’s appearance seldom changes to align with a world’s characteristics during his travels. For instance, in Kingdom Hearts 2, when Sora travels to The Lion King world, The Pride Lands, he will turn into a lion cub, while Donald and Goofy will turn into a hornbill and a tortoise, respectively. In Kingdom Hearts 3, the trio visits the Toy Story world and they turn into plastic action figure versions of themselves. These changes are not optional and are only accessible when visiting these few worlds.

Expanding Dreamlight Valley Customization

Future Dreamlight Valley updates or expansions could take inspiration from Kingdom Hearts’ method of player character diversity and allow players to have more options in how they can appear. One expansion could allow players to take the form of their own customizable lion, robot, monster, toy, or more. While players can already make themselves a monster thanks to The Laugh Floor update, the customizations options were restricted to only changing the player’s skin, eyes, and ears. Players deserve a chance to make their characters more unique and monstrous, in any shape they’d prefer, similar to the wide variety of monsters seen in both Monsters, Inc. and Monsters University.

These new customization options could potentially be released through a Kingdom Hearts themed expansion if approved by Square Enix. Dreamlight Valley could introduce a Kingdom Hearts realm, perhaps themed around Destiny Islands, Radiant Garden, or Twilight Town. In addition to allowing gamers to play as their own robot, animal, or monster, this proposed expansion could introduce Kingdom Hearts themed clothes, accessories, and homes, such as Organization 13’s iconic hooded cloaks.

Kingdom Hearts characters and items have collaborated with other games before, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate , Disney Infinity , Disney Emoji Blitz , LINE: Disney Tsum Tsum , World of Final Fantasy , Final Fantasy Brave Exvius , and Final Fantasy Record Keeper .

A More Diverse Dreamlight Valley

Allowing players to customize their characters into their own Disney-themed lion, robot, monster, toy, or more using Kingdom Hearts could grant players new forms of expression not seen before. Players could create their own unique monster and show it off to friends online, who may have their own unique animal, robot, or toy character. It could even further immerse players in Disney Dreamlight Valley as they journey to other realms. For example, people could play as a toy in the Toy Story realm instead of just playing as a human with realm-themed clothes.

Dreamlight Valley provides players with a treasure trove of cosmetics and other customization options, but allowing people to create their own characters based on some of their favorite films could help people continue playing the game. It may even incentivize new players to delve into Disney Dreamlight Valley for the first time.