The wait for Kingdom Hearts 4 has been exhausting for fans of Square Enix’s long-running Disney-focused action-adventure. First announced in 2022, three years after the release of Kingdom Hearts 3, the four-year gap between then and the 2026 Summer Nintendo Direct, where KH4 was announced, has been empty. There’s been the occasional post to remind fans that it’s still in development, hasn’t been forgotten about, and is coming eventually, partnered with a new screenshot of the game or drawing from Director Tetsuya Nomura. But little more.
Hopefully, the new teaser trailer is the kick-off of the game’s marketing campaign as they get closer to their planned launch. Yet, in these four long years and two trailers, one massive question has hung over the game’s news. What Disney IP will be used to kick-start Kingdom Hearts‘ new arc? Square Enix has essentially revealed nothing on the Disney side of the game. Except, maybe they gave a hint at one of those worlds in the latest trailer.
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Let’s first take a look at Kingdom Hearts 4‘s reveal trailer from 2022. Early on, about 35 seconds in, the trailer shifts from Quadratum, the game’s supposed primary hub world (its Traverse Town), to a forest scene. A massive tonal shift from a massive Tokyo-like cityscape to lush forests and nature sounds. Still, even 4 years later, these quick snippets are beautiful to look at. Yet something is off. Specifically at 37 seconds. A weird mechanical foot can be seen at the top right corner of the screen.
Speculation was already running that Star Wars would feature in Kingdom Hearts 4.
This foot was quickly compared to Star Wars’s Empire vehicle, the AT-ST. So, when combined with a vast forest and AT-STs, it’s not hard to assume that this could be our first reveal that The Forest Moon of Endor from Star Wars Episode 6 will be one of those Disney IP worlds. If Star Wars is a confirmed world, that would be the second Disney Animation division to be represented in the series (First being Pixar), and the third live-action property to be used as well. Big shoes to fill in there, but an exciting one nonetheless.
Now, let’s move ahead to what was shown off during the latest Nintendo Direct. We don’t get any scenes outside of Quadratum, but we get a much better look at the combat. These scenes, specifically the ones starting at 42 seconds into the trailer, reveal much more than the normal watcher may think. Especially if you watch the trailer that’s been released all over YouTube versus the one shown off during the Direct.
There are actually differences here in the reveal of one of the new Keyblades and its abilities. If you watch the trailer on its own on Square Enix, Nintendo, GameSpot, or other YouTube channels, you’ll see the combat with no UI while Sora uses a keyblade that appears to be made of fire with a hilt made of water. This keyblade and its UI are central to what may be the second subtle announcement for a Disney IP.
Let’s break out the string, push pins, and tinfoil hats, shall we? If you look at fire and water together, that could initially make one think that one of Pixar’s latest movies, Elemental, is the one being represented here. But that movie had very minimal combat, and the stakes were much more emotional. However, it would be cool to see how Wade and Ember are adapted to be a Kingdom Hearts world.
The Nintendo Direct trailer easily rules out Elemental.
Yet the Direct-specific trailer easily rules out Elemental as being the source of the new keyblade. During the same combat action sequence shown at timestamp 52:06 of the Direct, the UI remains and shows that the attacks Sora is pulling off are from the new Build mechanic.
The Build attacks seem like a massive evolution from Kingdom Hearts 3’s keyblade transformations, with much more specific attacks and UI changes. Two of the first attacks shown for this fiery/watery keyblade’s Build form are “Flowing Edge” and “Lava Slash”. We also see an action command for “Volcannon” and “Lava Slash” changes to “Igneous Impact.”
Moana is the first Disney movie that comes to mind when lava is involved.
Now, Lava is regularly representing superheated fire attacks. Yet no part of Elemental implies Lava being a part of its story. Just fire and water. However, there are two Disney movies that do have a major focus on lava, water, and Igneous rock (the rock that forms when magma or lava comes into contact with water). We’ll start off with the more obvious route: Moana.
Disney’s 2016 feature film, and 2026 live-action remake, Moana, ended with a major clash between the final antagonist, Te Ka, and the protagonists Maui and Moana. Te Ka, being a massive lava monster, summons and uses her lava to her advantage.
Including spawning lots of Igneous rock to block Moana and Maui from reaching whatever Te Ka is guarding. That could be the inspiration for Sora’s attacks that spawn big igneous rocks on the ground or as splash effects from attacking enemies.
Even when looking at the keyblade, the water hilt looks a lot like the living water Moana befriends. It is also reminiscent of the scene near the end of Moana when Moana’s Grandmother provides guidance in her Manta Ray spirit form. We also see something green and glowing in the hilt, about where the crossguard is. And a quick look makes it seem like, given the other pieces, it could be the Heart of Te Fiti, the stone that begins Moana’s quest to save the ocean and her people.
However, when going frame by frame, Moana may be ruled out as well. Primarily because of the keychain and that glowing green object in the keyblde. Several frames give us a clear look that the glowing green object is very much not the Heart of Te Fiti—it’s more like a glowing greenish orb surrounded by some metal or object.
The core in this keyblade looks more like the Heart of Atlantis than the Heart of Te Fiti.
The keychain, the source of how keyblades change and the most obvious part of the keyblade that highlights what inspires its design, is like a dark blue, almost black, square. These objects bring back memories of a dream Disney property that fans like me have wanted to be represented for quite some time: Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
There are many external factors that make Atlantis a very difficult property to include in Kingdom Hearts. Disney’s 2001 film was considered a massive commercial flop. In fact, many Atlantis spin-offs and theme park representations were canceled in the wake of the movie. To this day, Atlantis is more of a cult classic for Disney fans, with Disney seemingly throwing a tiny bone for big anniversaries of the film’s release, with small merch drops or pins.
Regardless of the real-world issues behind Disney’s potential refusal to greenlight Atlantis’s inclusion, the movie’s final scenes remain key to our analysis. If you’re unfamiliar with the movie (you should watch it immediately, it’s great!), it follows Milo Thatch, an archaeologist who leads an expeditionary team through a dormant volcano to discover the lost city of Atlantis. Milo quickly becomes enamored with the long-lost culture and people, and falls in love with Princess Kida.
Yet as the movie progresses, we learn that the expeditionary force was actually there to pillage the Atlanteans’ center of their beliefs and power source, the Heart of Atlantis. Kida merges with the Heart and gets captured. However, Milo and much of the expeditionary force (who’ve now accepted that they were the villains and want to atone for their actions) save Kida as the long-dormant volcano erupts. Kida, with the power of the Heart of Atlantis, summons ancient technology to protect the city with a force field, bringing prosperity back to the city.
So, Atlantis has it all. A long-dormant volcano, lava, igneous rock, and a glowing water-like effect with a force field that repels the lava. So the stone keychain could be one of the masks that circle the Heart of Atlantis. Similarly, the glowing green orb in the crossguard could be the contained Heart of Atlantis.
Or, could the keyblade be hinting at a return to Lilo & Stitch?
And the water-like look of the hilt could actually be the glowing force field with channels of energy from the Heart of Atlantis. Check, check, and check. Yet still, the keychain and orb in the best look we can get of it in 2-3 seconds of footage do still look slightly off from the source material.
That leaves two other possibilities, one much more likely than the other. It could still be referencing Hawai’i, but the Lilo and Stitch TV show. Specifically, Season 1, Episode 9 debuts experiments 501 and 502, which can shoot water and lava, respectively. By the end of the episode, these two work together to begin creating a new island for Hawai’i out of igneous rock. Yet this is a veeeery niche reference, and Square Enix has yet to take inspiration from any Disney TV show for a Disney world.
The final possibility is a simple one. That this keyblade is just the prime example of the new Build mechanic, and is based on nature’s most natural act of creation. Similar to Kingdom Hearts 3‘s Shooting Star keyblade that was shown off early on in the game’s press cycle, this one could also just be the “example” keyblade. The one that’s used to train us on this new feature, with, again, an ability that’s so natural, it’s been happening since the early days of the Earth’s life. This is also the least exciting option, though.
Speculation is afoot for Kingdom Hearts 4, now that we have finally gotten our first good glimpse of the game in over four years. Very little is known about which Disney properties will be represented in this next major entry (unless you look at the leaks and whatnot). Any information we do have is from tiny glimpses and conspiracy theorizing based on what Square has given us. Could the second property revealed actually be Moana or Atlantis: The Lost Empire? Only time will tell. But it was still fun to theorize again off a brief part of a trailer.
Kingdom Hearts 4 does not currently have a release window.
