“Big Hero 6,” winner of this year’s Academy Award for Best Animated Feature (and a personal favorite of mine), will be present in the next Kingdom Hearts game.
Kingdom Hearts 3 will feature Baymax, the puffy robotic healthcare helper from “Big Hero 6,” as well as San Fransokyo, the fictional city based on both San Fransisco and Tokyo from the Disney movie. Square Enix’s Shinji Hashimoto described San Fransokyo as “a perfect fit for Kingdom Hearts.” The game version of this world will take place after the events of the “Big Hero 6” film. The game will touch on themes of friendship and dark vs. light—much like Kingdom Hearts franchise in general.
Concept art of Sora—the series’ protagonist—riding on Baymax’s back was revealed. There was also a dark version of Baymax present, and the two appeared to be in battle. Hashimoto reportedly said that the dev team thought it would be interesting if Kingdom Hearts 3’s antagonists used the powers of darkness on the version of Baymax who was left behind in the portal at the end of “Big Hero 6.”
The idea behind Kingdom Hearts is that it is a mash-up of Disney and Square Enix characters and properties, along with Kingdom Hearts original characters. Players take the role of Sora, a teenager who wields a keyblade (a sword shaped like a key, literally). Sora’s companions include characters like Micky Mouse, Goofy, and Daffy Duck, as well as slightly newer Disney characters like Scar from “The Lion King” and Captain Barbarossa from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series. Beloved characters from Square Enix’s many Final Fantasy games also appear—Cloud, Tifa, and Squall, for instance.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is being released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. We don’t know yet what its release date will be.
