With news of Kingdom Hearts 4's development underway, fans are noticeably nervous about the franchise's future. 2019's Kingdom Hearts 3 brought an end to the 'Dark Seeker Saga', and in the trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4, the game will begin the 'Lost Master Arc' – therefore, a new story in the series will unfold. From the trailer, fans know that this new storyline will still feature Sora as the game's main protagonist, albeit in the Tokyo-like city of Quadratum.
Despite it being a series well-loved by many, the flaws that it carries are plain to see. From bland, underdeveloped side characters to the lack of Final Fantasy characters in recent entries, there are a few facets that the franchise needs to smooth over. However, its biggest flaw is the over-complexity of the entire storyline, and this is something that the story of Kingdom Hearts 4 needs to avoid through its new story arc.
Kingdom Hearts 4 Should Find Beauty In Simplicity
The biggest tell of how overly complicated the story of Kingdom Hearts' 'Dark Seeker Saga' can be seen from the fact that, despite the upcoming game carrying the number '4,' it will be the fourteenth game in the series. While the games outside the 'main series' essentially fill out the lore of Kingdom Hearts, these spin-offs are still imperative to understand what happens in the main series. Kingdom Hearts 4 has the opportunity to improve this.
Between the first Kingdom Hearts game and Kingdom Hearts 3, there are seven games spread over different platforms. Although games like Chain of Memories and 3D: Dream Drop Distance seemed to be spin-offs and, therefore, unrelated to the events in Kingdom Hearts 2 or 3, fans very quickly found that there were all connected to a singular story and carried key details to understanding aspects of the main series. Before Square Enix brought these spin-offs to a singular collection in Integrum Masterpiece, the many fans who only played the main games became confused about essential details of the story - details that Square Enix instead shared in the Game Boy Advance Chain of Memories or the mobile-only puzzle game Kingdom Hearts: Coded. Aspects like clones and time travelling were suddenly thrown into the main series games with zero explanation.
During the 20th anniversary celebration, alongside the announcement of the finale to Kingdom Hearts Dark Road (telling the story of how Xehanort turns to darkness) and Kingdom Hearts 4, Kingdom Hearts Missing Link was announced. Missing Link is another mobile-only game for the series, and aside from being based in Scala ad Caelum – the world that the group visited at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3 – there isn't much else known about it. The trailer was unclear on whether the story of Missing Link is a part of the supposedly concluded 'Dark Seeker Saga,' a part of the upcoming 'Lost Master Arc,' or something else entirely. Unfortunately, Missing Link puts the series at risk for further over-complication, primarily due to the lack of information fans have so far.
While the use of spin-offs in general is fine, it becomes messy when players need to play these games to understand what goes on within a central series of a game. Instead, they should be used to tell other stories without adding important vital details to a game's lore. These are among the many mistakes Kingdom Hearts 4 can make up for. The upcoming game and the 'Lost Master Arc' have the opportunity to create a simple, linear storyline that connects directly to future games in the main series, without the need for three or more 'spin-off' games to complicate things and add too much to its lore. Although the game's story follows the events concluding Kingdom Hearts 3, the storyline being built for this new arc needs to be planned thoroughly so that each aspect of the main story can remain as such – the main story.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is currently in development.