After years of silence, Kingdom Hearts IV has been receiving a consistent trickle of announcement, the most recent on being a new trailer. Square Enix announced at Disney’s D23 2026 showcase that the long-awaited beginning of the Lost Master Saga will launch in late 2027, the clearest indication of when Sora’s next adventure will arrive that fans have received yet. The trailer also reveal a new world for players to enjoy in the upcoming action RPG: the setting of Santa Cecilia from the beloved Pixar movie, Coco.
The unveiling of Coco represents the first major new Disney-Pixar world shown for Kingdom Hearts IV, with the Underworld of Olympus Colosseum being shown in previous trailers being the first Disney world. In the trailer, Sora is taken into the Land of the Dead, encountering characters and imagery from the 2017 film. The way this Disney-Pixar setting will be integrated into the wider Kingdom Hearts IV narrative is still up in the air, given the short length of the trailer. For example, the trailer shows Sora receiving a new Keychain inspired by the aesthetic of the new world and fighting Heartless alongside characters from the film as party members, implying that Sora received the equipment upgrade long before the world was completed, which was the series standard. However, the trailer also shows the full stop recreation of two scenes from Coco with minimal intervention from Sora, which served as barriers for worlds to be properly integrated in the story as seen with Arendelle (Frozen world) and Corona (Tangled world).
The trailers also provides a small look at the franchise’s continuing storyline. As seen in other trailers, Sora remains separated from his friends following the conclusion of the Dark Seeker (or Xehanort) Saga in Kingdom Hearts III, with Donald and Goofy continuing to actively search for him. The trailer also features characters connected to the wider Kingdom Hearts mythos set to be included in Kingdom Hearts IV, suggesting that the game’s story will continue pulling together elements from across the franchise as it begins its new saga. There are also more minor reveals that fans might notice after engaging with the new trailer multiple times. For example, the trailer unveiled two new Pureblood Heartless designs in the Quadratum segment: one appears to look like a satyr and the other like a bird. Another example would be the thematic throughline of all the worlds revealed so far being chthonic or death-adjacent: Santa Cecilia is an afterlife, as is the Underworld of Olympus Colosseum — even Quadratum serves a similar purpose from the Sora’s perspective.
The Newly Revealed Pureblood Heartless
Regardless, the most exciting aspect of the trailer is the announcement of an official release window. For perspective, Kingdom Hearts IV was originally announced in 2022, with Square Enix revealing very little about the title until recently. While it is not a concrete release data, increasingly the odds of delays being announced, it does establish a clearer expectation for when the anticipated mainline entry should arrive. The game is also set to launch on multiple platforms, with Square Enix confirming versions for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC through Steam, the Epic Game Store, and the Microsoft Store.
