The latest issue of Weekly Famitsu has a new interview with Kingdom Hearts III director Tetsuya Nomura, who discusses the game’s volume, downloadable content, and more.
Here are the tidbits:
- The release date being a little later than 2018 was a result of favorable circumstances for various related parties. It was not a matter of making more time for development.
- The Frozen world follows the same timeline as the movie, and the scene depicted in the game will develop without change. “Let It Go” will also play out.
- Anna and Elsa will not join your party, but Marshmallow will lend you his power.
- The Pirates of the Caribbean world is set during the third movie. Details about the second movie are touched upon in the synopsis.
- Ratatouille is a mini-game that you can play in Twilight Town. If you succeed, you will make cooking that raises your status. You can collect ingredients throughout the game’s various worlds.
- There is a music mini-game in the Tangled world. Most of the mini-games were proposed by the staff. They’re basically putting in mini-games without stopping.
- The Classic Kingdom was a project of Tetsuya Nomura, and he would like to add more mini-games if possible.
- A secret movie is already being made, but it does not yet have a final form.
- They are considering implementing the “Stories Connected to III” summary movies onto the Kingdom Hearts III disc.
- While it is hard to represent the state of development as a percentage, Nomura is worried that the volume is too great and they won’t have enough space. While the staff is turning some cutscenes into movies in order to reduce load times in those instances, their capacity is greater than expected.
- Regarding voice-overs, since there is data for both voices and lip syncing, switching between English and Japanese voices is proving difficult to support.
- They are not currently considering a Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts III. There are plans for updates via downloadable content, so additional elements will likely arrive in that form instead of via a Final Mix.
- Regarding downloadable content, while details have yet to be decided, Nomura wants to expand gameplay rather than do things like sell in-game items. He thinks they will release downloadable content]standalone rather than a Season Pass, but after they finish the main story first.
Kingdom Hearts III is due out for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 25, 2019 in Japan and Asia, and January 29 in North America and Europe.
Thanks, Hachima Kikou and Sokuho@Hokanko.