Kingdom Hearts 4 fans finally get a glimmer of hope

We haven’t heard much since Square Enix first revealed Kingdom Hearts 4 back in April 2022, during a livestream celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Disney-meets-Final-Fantasy franchise. Other than sharing a smattering of new KH4 screenshots in May of this year, it’s pretty much been radio silence for three years. That all changed this week, during a livestream celebrating the second anniversary of the (sigh) mobile gacha game Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis. During the show, series director Tetsuya Nomura shared a brief but encouraging update about the next installment of Kingdom Hearts — and also shared some info about the upcoming third game in the Final Fantasy 7 remake trilogy.

Over on Twitter (nope, not doing it), fan translator extraordinaire Audrey (@ataikimochi) shared audio from the stream along with English subtitles.

“We’re making great progress on the game,” Nomura said of the yet-unsubtitled Final Fantasy 7 Remake part 3. “And I can’t say anything else… If I did, people would be really surprised it’s during this [FF7EC] livestream. But we are indeed making a lot of progress with the game. We have already decided when we will make the announcement as well, and we will stick to that time schedule.”

Sony has held a State of Play livestream every September for the past six years to coincide with the Tokyo Game show, and the rumor mill is already churning that another one is in the works for this year. That could mean we’re just a few weeks away from juicy new FF7 Remake info.

“I’m seeing a lot of comments about Kingdom Hearts 4,” Nomura continued. “We are making great strides and going according to schedule. So please wait for more information on that.”

Admittedly, it’s not much of an update. But if we read between the lines, there’s a bit more meat on the bone. If Square Enix reveals the next FF7 Remake installment soon, like at TGS, then the company’s next big reveal would very likely be KH4 — maybe even as soon as The Game Awards in December. Unless it decides to drag Dragon Quest 12 out of the shadows after all these years, which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.