Square Enix Japan released three new Kingdom Hearts trailers today in a mashup video. One of the teasers happened to be for Kingdom Hearts Dark Road, and it ended by revealing the game's release date.
Square Enix delayed KH: Dark Road when it brought back the game's announcements from hiatus. Said hiatus happened because the developer was trying to salvage Dark Road's spring release window. It seems to have managed to pull this off somewhat, as the official release date is only two days after spring's end.
Kingdom Hearts Dark Road will launch on June 22, 2020, for iPhone, Android, and Amazon devices. The current assumption is that this date is just for Japan, but that may not be the case. When the game does launch, players will be able to access it from Kingdom Hearts Union Cross' startup screen. The menu's new look will splice the two games together.
The trailer for the game puts previously released Dark Road screenshots in motion, so it doesn't reveal anything new gameplay-wise. However, it does feature a small amount of voiceover from Xehanort that's fairly interesting. The very beginning of the trailer claims that Xehanort had unsolicited dreams of the Keyblade War's events back in his youth.
Kingdom Hearts Union Cross is supposed to enter its final chapter soon, and it will likely tie in heavily to Xehanort's dreams. The game's story currently revolves around a murder mystery that the five new Union leaders are trying to solve, and Ventus — Young Xehanort's future apprentice — is at the center of the whole thing.
How the events of Union Cross' final chapter conclude should set the stage for how Xehanort ends up meeting Ven. The game may end with Ven falling into another coma that leaves him ageless, except that instead of coma lasting from four to ten years, it continues for 70+. As laughable as that would be, it would explain how Ven lived during Union Cross' time period and yet somehow survived to see the events of Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep.
Regardless, Union Cross' inevitable end raises an interesting question about Dark Road's storytelling style: Will it take four years just to tell Xehanort's story? It doesn't seem likely, but that's how long Union Cross has gone on so far. Maybe Kingdom Hearts Director Tetsuya Nomura has a better idea of how he wants to handle Xehanort's story than Union Cross.
Kingdom Hearts Dark Road releases on June 22, 2020, for iPhone, Android, and Amazon devices.