Nomura has always been working on Kingdom Hearts III full-time, so nothing’s really changed there,” he says. “Nomura is really the visionary, so he doesn’t work on the nitty gritty details. That’s something we do in Osaka; alongside development, we do the technology. That hasn’t really changed. We get Nomura’s input but it’s not a day-to-day thing, he just has these big ideas sometimes he tells us about. The pace really depends on how our team’s doing and that was never affected.
I can’t really go into any specifics or say anything about Star Wars, but when we come up with worlds we really want variety and to make sure that there’s a lot of different types of worlds,” he emphasises. “Any world that looks special is definitely a consideration; everything from the characters, to how they look and the differences between them. We think Star Wars is great but I’m not going to relate that to Kingdom Hearts III yet! We want a wide variety of worlds and when we come up with ideas, it’s the differences and the originality of each that’s really important.
Alongside this hint, Yasue said that just because a world has previously appeared in the series doesn’t mean it won’t do so again. Square Enix is taking it’s time to evaluate which worlds will best suit the story and create a diverse experience for players and, until they’re ready, we shouldn’t expect any announcements. What he would admit, however, is that the non-linear structure we’ve come to expect won’t change, saying we’ll be able “to play them as you want”.
On Unreal Engine 4
We’ve shown some videos of what Kingdom Heart III looks like and it does look a bit different but it’s still clearly Kingdom Hearts,” he promises. “UE4 was introduced and there’s a lot of stuff that we didn’t have to do previously, like lighting and shading, which we now have to do. The technology is vastly different but it’s exhilarating to have all this stuff to learn. There’s so much we can do, the consoles are so fast. Some of the videos with Sora, with individual strands of his hair moving? That stuff is a real leap in technology. I can’t make any announcements on the Disney worlds but, even there, there are so many that we’re studying. They do a lot of new stuff as well so we’re figuring out how to incorporate them as well.
On the confusing story spanned across multiple platforms
Honestly, a lot of the developers, me included, are also sometimes confused,” he laughs. “Nomura has all this stuff in his head and sometimes doesn’t tell us. He keeps it secret. So there’s a lot of stuff he says in interviews that surprises us. I think he wants to shock us as well as fans, but a lot of it is hidden from us too!
On when the game will be out
We will make sure to make Kingdom Hearts III as quick as possible,” he says with a tired smile. It seems that’s as good an answer as I’m going to get.