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March 28 marks the anniversary of Square Enix's role-playing game series Kingdom Hearts. First launched back in 2002, the franchise is celebrating its 20th birthday this year. To celebrate the occasion, several Kingdom Hearts 20th anniversary announcements have already been made in the previous months, and fans are looking forward to the official anniversary event happening this April 2022. Just recently, Tetsuya Nomura, the director of Kingdom Hearts, has joined in on the festivities and has shared a sketch of Sora and other characters from the video game.Though there is no official news about an upcoming Kingdom Hearts 4, many fans are likely hopeful that the 20th anniversary will enlighten the game's community about the next steps for the series. With the next story update for the mobile title Kingdom Hearts Dark Road delayed and only a couple of merchandise announcements being shared by Square Enix, fans do not have a lot to go on in terms of actual video game news. Now that Nomura is jumping into the fray of the celebrations, players are likely hopeful that new information about the future of Kingdom Hearts will be revealed during the official anniversary event.Just a week before the official Kingdom Hearts 20th anniversary event on April 4, series director Nomura shared a new sketch that he is working on. Though the artwork still looks a bit unfinished, fans will likely recognize Kingdom Hearts protagonist and keyblade wielder Sora and some key characters, such as the different versions of antagonist Xehanort. There are other characters in the sketch that look similar to KH's Luxord and Marluxia, but other silhouettes at the top part of the image are not that recognizable yet. Hopefully Nomura unveils the finished artwork in time for the anniversary celebrations so that fans will not be left guessing.
According to Google Translate, in the official Kingdom Hearts Twitter post on March 27, Nomura apologizes for the lack of preparation for the 20th anniversary and says that he only started working on the sketch the day before. Even though the caption does not officially reveal anything about the characters in the sketch, many fans have already replied on the Twitter thread with numerous additions to Kingdom Hearts fan theories. However, most replies still offer their congratulations on the RPG series hitting the 20th year milestone.
Fortunately, fans do not have to wait long until the official Kingdom Hearts event on April 4. The community is likely hoping that Nomura will offer more than official artwork and actually reveal the company's plans for the next title in the series.