After Melody of Memory releases this November, Kingdom Hearts fans are probably expecting a nice and long silence from Square Enix about the next project in the franchise. Considering series director Tetsuya Nomura already let it slip that the next mainline entry is releasing in 2022 for Kingdom Hearts' 20th anniversary, that's probably as much as fans are going to get from now until the end of next year. That being said, this means the wait between Kingdom Hearts 3 and the next potential game may not be as long as before.
With the next Kingdom Hearts mainline game potentially coming in 2022, assuming it truly is Kingdom Hearts 4 instead of yet another spin-off title, there's a few things that needs to be done to recapture the spirit of the franchise. While Kingdom Hearts 3 did tie up some loose ends over the ever-enduring Xehanort Saga, there's a whole lot that was left behind in the third game that Kingdom Hearts 4 should bring back. Not only that, but there's a ton of new potential threads for the game to go based Kingdom Hearts 3's several secret endings.
Bringing Final Fantasy Back To Kingdom Hearts
One thing in particular that irked fans upon finishing Kingdom Hearts 3 was the total lack of Final Fantasy characters. One of the premier defining factors of the Disney-Square Enix team up was the mixing and matching of Disney and Final Fantasy characters. Even if it was relegated to just a few worlds, this strange mixture of properties was what initially made Kingdom Hearts unique. Eventually Final Fantasy characters did return in Kingdom Hearts 3, but only after the main game in the ReMind DLC, and only for the additional Data Battles. They held little to no impact on the story, unlike in previous games where they were central characters in both the main and side conflicts.
For the next mainline game, Final Fantasy characters should absolutely return in a major way for Kingdom Hearts 4. One of the defining aspects of Kingdom Hearts is the inclusion of Final Fantasy characters, so without them, the game is just a Disney RPG. Final Fantasy characters could theoretically come to the game with their own isolated world, like if Verum Rex (or Yozora's World) becomes a fully playable world in Kingdom Hearts 4. Or otherwise, at least spend some time in Hollow Bastion, or insert more Final Fantasy characters in other Disney worlds.
Exploring New and Different Disney Worlds
Along those lines, there's still a plethora of new/recent Disney worlds that Kingdom Hearts has yet to explore. Between Kingdom Hearts 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3, there's about 30 different Disney franchises and movies represented in the series so far. There's still tons of big fan requests for worlds like Treasure Planet, Jungle Book, Wreck-It Ralph, among plenty of other Disney favorites. That's without even mentioning some of the more recently acquired properties like Marvel's Avengers or Star Wars, which would absolutely be insane to see in a Kingdom Hearts game.
However, even if there's more brand new Disney worlds added to Kingdom Hearts or a majority of them are returning worlds, there's one important thing that Kingdom Hearts 4 needs to do either way. Another big gripe with Kingdom Hearts 3 is that the journeying between different Disney worlds rarely feels like it's sufficiently justified by the Kingdom Hearts 3 narrative. Sure, previous games haven't had the strongest reasons for Sora and team to explore the Disney worlds, but at least the reasoning made some semblance of sense. A lot of the reasons why Sora explored the worlds in Kingdom Hearts 3 seemed awfully too convenient for the game's story.
A Chance To Simplify Kingdom Hearts' Narrative
Speaking of the narrative, the overarching story of Kingdom Hearts finds itself in a very interesting place. Wrapping up the Xehanort Saga has presented a lot of big "ifs" for the future of Kingdom Hearts, as there's a lot of melding between the old and new happening. Upon the ending of Kingdom Hearts 3 and ReMind, there's a lot that's been confirmed for the future of Kingdom Hearts: the Foretellers from Kingdom Hearts Union Cross have made it into the current timeline alongside the Master of Masters, as well as a whole new narrative thread seems to be stemming from Yozora and the world of Verum Rex.
Merging these two story threads means there's a whole lot of uncertainty on how everything connects, especially in the absence of a central antagonist like Xehanort. It's possible that Xigbar/Braig/Luxu (whatever name he uses in Kingdom Hearts 4) may be the main villain, as he's the sole survivor of the organization who doesn't have a "normal self" to return to. However, it's unclear if Yozora is truly a villain or simply a misunderstood ally. Not to mention the Master of Masters, whose role is just as vexing (if not more confusing) in comparison.
Kingdom Hearts 4 certainly has a lot of explaining to do, but hopefully a 2022 release date means the story is on track. The best thing that Kingdom Hearts 4 can do is reduce some of the complexities in its story by bringing some of these confusing high lore aspects to the forefront of the series' story. Among the other obvious things like new worlds and bringing back its iconic partnership with Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts 4 has an opportunity to simplify the story (as much as it can) after finally finishing the Xehanort Saga.
A new Kingdom Hearts project is reportedly in development for 2022.