Written by: Artur Galvao

This past weekend at the Disney D23 Expo, Square Enix made some huge Kingdom Hearts III announcements, revealing a new Toy Story World and a rough release date. Since then, Kingdom Hearts III director Tetsuya Nomura has been vocal and dropping information about a second playable character, the reason for the game’s delays, the number of worlds we can expect, and more. Honestly I wait for this title.

Well, in a recent interview with IGN, Nomura revealed even more details about Kingdom Hearts III’s story, providing hints about the game’s villains, love interest, and more. Some of this stuff can be inferred from the game’s trailers, but it’s good to have confirmation from the mastermind himself.

The following is from this aritcle:

We know the shadowy Organization XIII and various Disney baddies like Maleficent and Pete will feature in Kingdom Hearts III, but what are they up to? And are they working together? According to Nomura, the two groups of villains are kind of doing their own thing…

Whenever Maleficent and Pete go to different worlds, they interact with some of the Disney villains that exist in that world, but they are their own thing, with Maleficent leading the way. They have no sort of cooperation with Organization XIII, nor are they conflicting or enemies with them. Sora is battling the 13 Darkness, but Maleficent and Pete are kind of separate from that. So, she doesn’t necessarily actively poke at Sora or try to bother him.

The Kingdom Hearts III trailer released during E3 2017 hinted that Roxas, the mirror image of Sora created when he sacrificed his heart, would be making a return in the game. But how can Sora and Roxas exist at the same time? Nomura doesn’t say specifically, but he definitely teases Roxas will return.

If a Heartless and Nobody can exist at the same time, can Sora and Roxas exist at the same time, too? And to do that, Xemnas is asking Sora, do you intend on utilizing the power of darkness? So that’s the kind of narrative that we wanted to talk about in that section of the game.

Finally, what’s up with Kairi? She’s ostensibly Sora’s love interest, but they’ve never kissed, and her role has been downplayed as the Kingdom Hearts series has carried on. Well, don’t expect Sora and Kairi’s relationship to evolve much this time around either, as it sounds she’s going to be off on a side mission.

With the help of Merlin, she’s now in the sort of environment where there’s no limitation of time. So, Kairi can train, and focus on becoming a Keyblade wielder. And so, in Kingdom Hearts III it will be touched upon that those two are currently training.

Kingdom Hearts III is scheduled to hit the Xbox One and PS4 sometime in 2018.

[via IGN]