After years of silence, Square Enix is finally talking about Kingdom Hearts IV again this year, because as we now know the publisher and developer is expecting to release the game next year.
A new extended trailer of the next entry of this action RPG that started out as a dream crossover between Final Fantasy and Disney (though the Final Fantasy aspects have since Kingdom Hearts III has been dropped) was dropped during D23 2026, the annual Disney fan event.
The new trailer featured the world of Pixar’s Coco, as Sora drops in during a concert to beat up some Heartless spawning. What follows is another look at the real-looking world of Quadratum (Sora’s phone has a Mickey logo on the back) where a group of soldiers and black monstrosities are wreaking havoc, Sora in a proper makeup to fit with the folks of Plaza de la Cruz though with no Donald and Goofy with him, both Miguel and Hector join him as party members in fights. Mickey appears to say the very thing Kingdom Hearts fans are screaming at the screen: This is a lot of new information. He appears to be playable too in a level that switches between 3D and 2D. Donald and Goofy are also playable, as a party of two in one scene. And finally, an old friend and fellow Keyblade wielder (or at least someone with his appearance—who knows?) appears just in the nick of time, before the trailer comes to a close.
With the target release window being late 2027, Kingdom Hearts IV will likely still come in physical PS5 discs, just before its discontinuation in January 2028.
On top of this new trailer reveal, there was an entire Kingdom Hearts panel hosted during D23 2026.
There was also the announcement of a new original anime series for the Disney Channel and Disney+, developed in collaboration with Tetsuya Nomura and Square Enix. The anime series is simply titled “Kingdom Hearts” but fortunately it’s only a working title, so there’s still hope for it to have a more avant garde title, as the series is known for. Surely they can top Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (pronounced as Three Five Eight Days over Two), Kingdom Hearts Union χ Dark Road (the symbol is pronounced “Chi”) and Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue.
Kingdom Hearts IV will be out on PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Microsoft Store), Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2.