During a Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary event, Square Enix unveiled our first look at the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts 4. This trailer hints at a novel, gritty interpretation of the series. Sora, now seemingly far older, finds himself in a realistic-looking city (that greatly resembles Shibuya) called Quadratum.
But what's most exciting about this trailer is the slightest hint at the inclusion of Star Wars. During a series of shots of a photo-realistic forest, we see the very bottom of a metal foot that greatly resembles an ATAT (All Terrain Armored Transport) from the Star Wars series.
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Could Star Wars and Kingdom Hearts unite?
Although it's barely present in the shot, you can see the AT-AT foot in the top right of the image. We're not 100% certain if this is exactly what it is, but we have no other theories on what else it might be.
Kingdom Hearts is known for having Sora, Donald and Goofy travel throughout Disney worlds. And since Star Wars is owned by Disney, it makes sense that this could happen. In Kingdom Hearts 3, we saw Pixar films and other modern Disney Animated films get introduced into the mix (including Toy Story, Monsters Inc., Tangled and Frozen).
It's possibly Square Enix and Disney are looking for another hook to get people excited for the next game. Introducing a Star Wars world in an upcoming reveal would cause the internet to explode, so it would be a smart move for the sake of hype.
Kingdom Hearts 4 tackles modernity
Throughout other points in this trailer, we see Sora face off against a huge boss after civilians rush out of their cars in fear at the presence of a seemingly Pureblood Heartless (that greatly resembles Darkside from other games in the series).
In the Kingdom Hearts 4 announcement blog post, Square Enix claims that Quadratum is "a large, expansive city" and is set "in a gorgeous, realistic world." This makes it seem like the city won't just be a small nugget within a sea of worlds like other Kingdom Hearts games. Perhaps Quadratum will act as a hub, or Sora will spend quite a while there before moving onto other Disney worlds.
And at the very end of the trailer, we see Donald and Goofy side-by-side looking for Sora before being attacked by who we assume is Hades. We can only theorize, but it seems Donald and Goofy are trapped in the Underworld for a chunk of the game.
