Highlights
- Kingdom Hearts 4 is likely to feature worlds based on more modern Disney films, possibly including Inside Out.
- Inside Out's success makes it a likely candidate for Kingdom Hearts 4, potentially exploring Sora's or other characters' minds.
- An Inside Out world in Kingdom Hearts 4 could use Islands of Personality as mini-world hubs for nostalgic gameplay.
Worlds from several classic Disney films have been featured in Kingdom Hearts across its 22-year-long history, and even more are expected to be included in Kingdom Hearts 4. Most of these were classic hand-drawn, 2D animated films such as Alice in Wonderland, with later exceptions of 3D animated and even live-action films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Pirates of the Caribbean.
It wasn’t until 2019’s Kingdom Hearts 3 that Sora, Donald, and Goofy were finally able to venture into the computer-animated films of Pixar with the Toy Story world Toy Box and the Monsters Inc. world Monstropolis. Kingdom Hearts 4 will likely continue to explore more modern Disney films. One highly successful Pixar duology will likely have a world featured in Kingdom Hearts4: the critically acclaimed Inside Out and Inside Out 2.
One Disney World Wouldn't Have Made Sense For Kingdom Hearts 3, But It Does For KH4
Kingdom Hearts 3 featured multiple worlds from Disney's animated catalog, and one unused property makes perfect sense for the series' next entry.
The Emotional World of Inside Out Would be Perfect for Kingdom Hearts 4
Inside Out is one of Pixar’s more popular franchises in the past decade. First released in 2015, Inside Out focuses on the story of a young girl, Riley, as her emotions struggle to cooperate together while Riley grows up and encounters emotionally difficult events such as moving. Riley’s mind acted essentially as a world within itself, with the emotions Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust operating as Riley’s command crew. Meanwhile, other mind workers helped maintain Riley’s memories, imagination, and Islands of Personality. By the end of Inside Out 1, the emotions learned to accept one another and work well together to help Riley navigate the frustrations of growing up.
Despite widespread critical and financial success, Inside Out didn't receive a sequel for nine years until 2024’s Inside Out 2. Set two years after Inside Out 1, Inside Out 2 has the core emotion struggle with Riley going through puberty and having four new emotions appear including Anxiety, Ennui, Embarrassment, and Envy. Anxiety leads the other emotions to suppress the core emotions in order to better prepare Riley for the future. Along the way, other future emotions are released and teased with the early appearance of the Nostalgia emotion.
While Inside Out 2 has only been out for just over a week currently, it has already become the highest-grossing movie of 2024, earning over $728 million globally.
An Inside Out World in Kingdom Hearts 4 Seems Likely
While no Disney worlds or characters have been confirmed for Kingdom Hearts 4, beyond Donald and Goofy, Inside Out has a lot of potential to appear in the next mainline Kingdom Hearts game. Little is known about which characters from prior Kingdom Hearts games will appear in Kingdom Hearts 4, but Square Enix could use the mind world concept to possibly travel into Riku or Kairi’s mind if they become knocked out or have their minds invaded by Heartless. Sora could potentially use the same technology used to freeze him in between Kingdom Hearts 1 and Kingdom Hearts 2 to access these characters’ minds.
Square Enix could also simply have Sora’s mind appear as a complete entity in his own mind. There could be Kingdom Hearts versions of Inside Out emotions that could act as optional companions. Some of these emotions could even appear as previous, beloved companions, with Goofy being Fear and Donald being Anger. Together, they could travel throughout Sora or other characters’ minds and battle tiny, emotion-esque Heartless or Nobodies. This world’s traversal could act similarly to the whale Monstro world in Kingdom Hearts 1, while accessing the Inside Out world could function similarly to how the Tron world Space Paranoids is accessed in Kingdom Hearts 2.
A Mini Emotional Hub World
One unique aspect Square Enix could utilize in Kingdom Hearts 4 from Inside Out is the Islands of Personality. Since the Islands are based on core memories and only five are able to appear in a person’s mind, these islands could each serve as mini-worlds with Sora or other characters’ minds acting as hub worlds. If this world is set in Sora’s mind, each Island could be based on one important or fan-favorite world from prior games. These could be based on Destiny Islands, Twilight Town, Hollow Bastion, Olympus, or Dive To The Heart. These could be structured more closely to their Kingdom Hearts 1 or 2 appearances to go all in on fans’ nostalgia and their own core memories.
Kingdom Hearts 4
Kingdom Hearts 4 is an action RPG developed by Square Enix and represents the fifteenth installment in the franchise. Players once again are put in the shoes of Sora who is suddenly trapped in a more realistic world called Quadratum, with companions like Donald and Goofy attempting to rescue him. Kingdom Hearts 4 is a direct sequel to Kingdom Hearts 3 and Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.
- Franchise
- Kingdom Hearts
- Platform(s)
- PS5 , Xbox Series X|S
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Publisher(s)
- Square Enix
