Like any good reveal trailer, Kingdom Hearts 4’s debut posed more questions than it did answers. Sora finds himself in Quadratum, Goofy and Donald are looking for him, and he’s got some modern-looking gear (at least in this Kingdom Hearts 4 world). Combat also looked interesting, and fans know that reaction commands are back.
Something new, however, is the build command. It may sound like something out of Fortnite at first, but it seems likely that it’ll play a major part of the Kingdom Hearts 4’s story and gameplay. Tetsuya Nomura wouldn’t provide many details on KH4’s build command during a recent interview, but he described the core concept of this function as “destruction and reconstruction.”
Kingdom Hearts 4, Destruction, and Reconstruction
Presumably, this would likely mean that Sora could create weapons, or perhaps something like summons or barriers, from destroyed pieces of the environment. He would essentially be breathing new life into something destroyed, it would seem, and this could actually play a major role in terms of Kingdom Heart 4’s story too. It could theoretically mean something else entirely, but there’s only so many ways to realize something focused on building, destruction, and reconstruction.
Kingdom Hearts 3 ends on a cliffhanger, with Sora disappearing from his universe. This has led many to believe that, beyond Quadratum, there will be brand-new worlds only accessible on this “side” of the universe—with this universe operating as the Afterlife for Sora—and vice versa for those living in Quadratum and elsewhere. It’s kind of like a yin-yang idea, how these two possibly relate. Some think this is a prime time to focus on live-action Disney movies in the various worlds, with fans believing the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer even teases a Star Wars world.
Kingdom Hearts 4: Syncing Story and Gameplay
Thinking of this duality, this potential yin-yang relationship, and a potential common theme between the two universes brings back the idea of destruction and reconstruction. Perhaps the worlds will have darker themes that line up with destruction, with Sora having to build new relationships to fix them. It would line up well, with Sora perhaps having to “reconstruct” himself to get home. Of course, it’s likely to be much more complicated than that sounds in Kingdom Hearts 4 as Sora travels to new worlds, faces new foes, and so on.
If these universes mirrored each other in this manner, it would make sense for a gameplay mechanic in Kingdom Hearts 4 to realize this concept too. When a game’s story and its gameplay sync up well, it always makes it better. There’s nothing worse than a game about killing being bad, but the player spends the entire game killing people. Obviously, this isn’t as extreme as that, but if these two universes parallel and that sort of concept is realized in gameplay too, it would only take Kingdom Hearts 4 to the next level.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is in development.