The friendship trios of the Kingdom Hearts series has been a major focal point for the narrative since 2002, but one main group has consistently been separated leading up until Kingdom Hearts 4. With the next Kingdom Hearts game starting a new era for the franchise, this could be the time to let series protagonist Sora start exploring new Disney worlds alongside his two best friends.

This would unfortunately come with a key change to the main party, altering a trend that has trended for the majority of Kingdom Hearts titles where Sora has appeared as a playable character. However, as Square Enix prepares Kingdom Hearts 4 to enter a World of Fiction that ironically has the most realistic imagery yet, Donald and Goofy might not be the right fit for the series anymore.

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Riku and Kairi Should Join the Sora's Journey

So far in the series, the closest Kingdom Hearts has come to bringing Riku and Kairi along for the ride has included them being on their own journeys that worked in tandem with Sora's, or them sitting on the sidelines until it was time to go fight the big bad. It's an understandable difficulty for such a narrative focused series to have too many characters, all of which are beginning to grow capable in their own rights. The ever evolving story and characterizations don't exactly fit perfectly in formulaic storytelling, or more important in this case, the ongoing formula of Kingdom Hearts' Disney world hopping structure.

That being said, with the Xehanort arc finally being over and a mysterious new threat around the corner, this is the time to buck that formula that has started to stale after twenty years. This means pulling Riku and Kairi from the sidelines and allowing them to excel in a story where they have just as much influence and agency as Sora himself. There's no need to wait for Kairi's training with Aqua to finish or for to get on the same level as Sora and Riku. Instead, all three should start traveling together immediately, so they can stumble and fail to find their sync over the course of the game until they unify in the Kingdom Hearts 4's finale.

In-universe, these three have continued to be whisked away from adventure to adventure for a few years. For fans playing the games for the last twenty years, though, the three best friends dubbed the Destiny Trio might as well be minor acquaintances with how little time they've actually spent together onscreen. So it's time to make good on the backstory and lore of Sora, Kairi, and Riku, by having them spend some time together that isn't right before another inciting incident on the Destiny Islands.

Send Donald and Goofy Back to Mickey

The obvious elephant in the room when talking about reuniting the Destiny Trio in Kingdom Hearts 4, is the matter of what to do with Donald and Goofy. These two have been such a mainstay of the series that it would almost feel like losing a piece of the series' heart to replace Donald and Goofy with Riku and Kairi. That being said, it's not like Donald and Goofy haven't disappeared from the main party before, like when Sora went dream hopping in Dream Drop Distance.

Instead, the reformation of the Destiny Trio could mean that Donald and Goofy get to finally work alongside King Mickey again, something they originally set out to do in the first Kingdom Hearts. It might be a big change for the series, but it would set things back into an order that would have been familiar to the larger world of Kingdom Hearts in the days just before Sora's first adventure. This could also allow players to have some familiar backup during moments where Sora gets to temporarily sit the fighting out and control is given again to King Mickey as he fights alongside Donald and Goofy in their own adventure.

Kingdom Hearts 4 is in development by Square Enix.

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