Square Enix held their Kingdom Hearts III Premiere Invitation Event earlier today for certain members of the press and the series’ dedicated fanbase. The purpose of this event was to give media outlets, as well as lucky fans, a chance to be the very first few to get some hands on time with the game. Information on the event was embargoed until the very morning of the event, so a flurry of news and impressions of the game arrived today in dramatic fashion. Media outlets who got to try the game out prior to the event showed off their footage of the demo which was titled the Kingdom Hearts III Premium Showcase. The demo was completely in English, so this makes it the first English dubbing we’ve heard for KH3 so far.
As for the amount of content, it was basically a couple excerpts from two worlds; Toy Box, (The World based off of Toy Story), and Olympus (The Hercules World). The demo version of Toy Box was about 30% of what we will be explorable within the final game, but there was still quite a bit of content to explore. Players could run, jump, use Athletic Flow, and use parkour moves to traverse the huge amusement park like terrain to fight enemies. We got a new look at how flashy summons would be, and on top of seeing a more in depth look at the Ariel summon from a previous trailer, we even got the introduction of a whole new summon character, Wreck-it Ralph. In regards to the basic fighting mechanics, it was also revealed that Sora may have three different keyblades equipped at a time and may switch between them on the fly while in the midst of combat.
As for the Olympus world, this setting was more focused on the fight with the huge Rock Titan who is hurling boulders from atop of a mountain at Sora and his friends. Within this world, we saw how far the Attraction Flow summons (which are based on amusement park rides) have come along in development. More moves, links with party members, and combo possibilities with the keyblade’s transformations were shown off as well.
As for the official event, it started with a panel with series director Tetsuya Nomura, producer Shinji Hashimoto, and Co-director Tai Yasue. They first explained the theme of the game, which will be heart and resolution. They also teased that the ending of KH3 will be hard for some fans to handle and that they should expect a few surprises within the full game. Then, they showed the attendees a video on the process they used for developing the worlds based on the movies Tangled and Monster’s Inc.
After the attendees got their chance with the demo, Yasue and Nomura confirmed that more information would be coming next month, and so much information that fans would have trouble keeping up with it all. They also added that the news to come will help fans’ understanding of the game. Within the closing remarks, Nomura stated that the full release date would be revealed sometime early next month. Square Enix currently has two events occurring next month, the return of the Kingdom Hearts World Tour Orchestra which is happening June 9 in Los Angeles, and their official E3 showcase which is a prerecorded presentation that will air on June 11. Kingdom Hearts III is currently set for a 2018 release window.