Kingdom Hearts 3 is a game that fans have been waiting an entire console generation for and when the game got its first trailer at E3 2013 many gamers immediately took notice. Tetsuya Nomura, who is a designer for the game, has a weekly column for the Japanese website Famitsu (translated by Kotaku) and he revealed some interesting details about the highly anticipated game.
Nomura revealed that for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One game, the development team has already begun choosing and developing the worlds in the game, and, while he did not give specifics, Nomura revealed there will be several Disney franchises that will appear for the first time in the game:
"We've already chosen some worlds and have begun development, but I can't specifically say 'this world' or 'this character will appear' at this point in time. We will offer more information as time goes on, but comparatively, there are more new worlds and many Disney works that haven't shown up yet will make an appearance."
This is intriguing news for fans, as many hoped that recent Disney acquisitions such as Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars would be included in the game. However, the footage released for the game has revealed very little information about what worlds will be in the game, so the exact content of the game is still a mystery.
The designer also went into detail about Square Enix's attempts to mimic the brushwork of Disney animation and make the cartoon worlds look as much as possible as the actual works they are based on:
"We don't have an official name for it, but we have something called the 'Kingdom Shader.' We showed it in the E3 trailer, but it's our attempt to 'Express Disney's 2D brushwork in 3D.' When deciding on the graphical direction for Kingdom Hearts III, we talked with [Square Enix's Takeshi] Nozue and the rest of Square Enix's visual development department, Visual Works, and had them prepare several different styles. Some were in a 'brushwork-like style' and they were developed into what you saw at E3. We have a development base where Visual Works makes a pre-rendered movie that we convert into a real-time render."
It will be interesting to see how this technology is used in Kingdom Hearts 3, and if it allows the game to create worlds that are able to match their counterparts aesthetically so that fans of the Disney universe get an added treat play the game.