Kingdom Hearts: Star Wars, Marvel content "would be great"
Kingdom Hearts creator Tetsuya Nomura is enthusiastic about the possibility of bringing Star Wars and Marvel content to the franchise, but reiterated that he isn't sure he can make it happen.
"Of course it would be great if we could add those licenses as well," Nomura told Finaland in an interview conducted at Japan Expo in Paris.
"But there are lots of rules and restrictions by Disney so we can’t actually put in everything people want. So it’s a quite difficult decision but we’re gonna prepare some surprises for you so, just wait for the information."
Fellow Square Enix produce Yoshinori Kitase is said to be a huge Star Wars fan, and Nomura acknowledged he himself is quite interested in the property.
"We’ve been talking about Star Wars itself since it became Disney’s content recently. When I heard the news I was like wow, wow'. Obviously it’s gonna be great if we could add it," he said.
Asked whether the next Kingdom Hearts would allow players to control characters other than Sora, Nomura seemed a bit reluctant.
"We want to make the most of Sora, playable Sora of course. But again, Kingdom Hearts 3 is going to be the last chapter of the Kingdom Hearts main numbering title series, so lots of fans actually want to play as their favorite characters in Kingdom Hearts 3 so we will consider that, we will listen to what fans wants but hopefully we could give you some surprises in the future announcements," he said.
Interestingly, Nomura said that Sora ("sky") and Final Fantasy 15 protagonist Noctis Caelum ("night sky") are supposed to be opposites; he called them his two "sons" and said that Sora was a "good son" in that he'd been so successful. He also noted that he expects Noctis to be more "clever" thank Final Fantasy 7 frontman Cloud Strife, another famous Nomura design from his pre-directorial days.
Finally, Nomura assured fans that even though the team developing Kingdom Hearts is located in another office, and he's busy with Final Fantasy 15 among other projects, he is heavily involved in the series closest to his heart.
"I always have been heavily involved in this project compared to the other games i’m actually producing or directing," he said.
"The team creating Kingdom Hearts 3 is in the studios in Osaka, and Osaka and Tokyo are a little bit far away from each other but we meet enough with meetings quite often, and we’re doing telephone conferences too. So we communicate all the time as I am quite heavily involved on this project."
Although Nomura's visit to Paris was a promotional tour for Kingdom Hearts 1.5 HD ReMIX, he also spoke a little on Final Fantasy 15, although unfortunately was not able to release much new information, speaking mostly in generalities. The full interview is accessible through the link above.