Why Kingdom Hearts 3 is Taking So Long; Possibility of Nintendo Switch Release

Tetsuya Nomura, the director for Kingdom Hearts 3, explains what happened behind the scenes and shifting the development period of the upcoming game.

After the recent reveal at the D23 expo, many got excited to see what’s new with Kingdom Hearts 3. We’ve received an official release window, but we haven’t gotten the actual date just yet. It’s been 12 years since Kingdom Hearts 2 and we’ve still yet to see the game’s release. Here’s why the development of Kingdom Hearts 3 is taking so long.

Why Kingdom Hearts 3 is Taking So Long

In an interview with DualShockers, Nomura-san mentioned that the development team knew how long the development window would have been since the beginning, and this goal was set in their planning. Those plans indicated that the team would spend a certain amount of time working on Kingdom Hearts 3, and the time frames in which they would receive additional staff.

While that plan was already in place, there were factors involving Square Enix’s decisions that influenced the outcome. Those factors included the decision to switch to Unreal Engine 4, and changes in personnel planning. These decisions ended up affecting the actual release timing, but the development period did not really change, it just naturally shifted. That’s why Nomura-san feels that the team has been working according to the plans.

Nomura-san elaborated further, explaining that the announcement of a game and full production aren’t necessarily linked. He heard a lot of people making it sound like he himself is taking too much time on the game, and that hurts. After about a year’s worth of development, the engine was changed from a proprietary engine to Unreal Engine 4, and that caused a setback, with part of the work that had to be re-done.

Unfortunately, that was an inevitable decision that the company had to make, but Nomura-san wanted to stress that it wasn’t due to problems on the development team’s side, and it wasn’t a case of him personally changing his mind.

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The original plan mentioned before included the time the game would have required to develop, alongside how much additional personnel would have been needed after at certain time frames to mass produce the assets. Square Enix headquarters approved the plan, but internal staff is limited, and there are various different projects that happen within the company.

Timing for that did not work out, so the team had to make due with the timing that was appropriate for the company.  That contributed to the shift in the development period. Since those decisions were taken by the company, they were out of Nomura-san’s control.

Possibility of Nintendo Switch Release

When asked about the possibility of a Nintendo Switch release for Kingdom Hearts 3 at the D23 expo, Nomura-san gave a vague, but somewhat hopeful answer:

The Nintendo Switch is definitely a very interesting piece of hardware, but if we lightly say, ‘Oh yeah, we’ll be on the Nintendo Switch,’ I’m sure people will come back and say, ‘But what about the PS4 and Xbox One? We want them out first. Don’t focus on other platforms. So for now, we want to focus on what platforms we’ve already announced we’re going to be releasing Kingdom Hearts III on. And so after, perhaps, maybe we can start thinking about other possibilities.

If it ends up happen, it would be the first time a Kingdom Hearts game will be released on a Nintendo Console. We’ve seen Kingdom Hearts games pop up in the Gameboy Advance (Chain of Memories), Nintendo DS (358/2 Days), and even the 3DS (Dream Drop Distance), but those are handhelds.

Pokdepinion: Now here’s the thing about release windows. It may say 2018 but it could also mean much later in the year 2018. Then there’s also a possibility of another delay. I’m hoping that’s not the case but I’m growing a little bit impatient. Let’s just hope Kingdom Hearts 3 is worth the wait.