Despite how unlikely the core premise ofKingdom Heartswas from its onset, long-time fans have become intimately familiar with the story of main characters Sora and Riku. The two have sometimes been at odds, but have always harbored a connection that’s spanned multiple games. The franchise has become known for its famously convoluted storyline that spans hundreds of years within its lore. After serving as the main focus of the narrative, it could be incredibly satisfying for fans to see the story of Sora and Riku reach its conclusion wheneverKingdom Hearts 4eventually releases.
Video game narratives are famous for being extended beyond what many would consider a healthy lifespan. A character’s arc can often be extended beyond the point of believability.Kingdom Heart’sSorahas often been lumped into that category by many. While the original game set out a fairly simple path for Sora and the Keyblade, the subsequent games ended up creating an extensive lore that has both been a positive and a negative for the story ofKingdom Heartsas a whole.
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Kingdom Hearts 4 Could Start a New Legacy by Ending the Old One
Throughout the history of visual mediums like comics, cartoons, and video games, many of the best-received stories have been those with a degree of finality. Famous comic examples likeThe Watchmenand anime likeCowboy Bebopare largely made better by the contained nature of their stories. WithKingdom Hearts, andFinal Fantasyas a whole, drawing so much inspiration fromBerserkand other Japanese titles that have a clear ending, it would serve the franchise well forKingdom Hearts 4to be the ending of thetwo fan-favoriteKingdom Heartsheroes.
Kingdom Heartsspans a lot of gamesat this point. Almost all of those games focus on Sora and Riku or one of the antagonists that operate either as a foil or a literal simulacrum for one of the two youths. Originally created as a junction betweenKingdom Hearts' Disney andFinal Fantasyroots, each hero has cemented themselves as individuals at this point. This is a huge part of why seeing their journey reach its end would be very satisfying for many fans. While Sora and Riku have forged their own path, they also opened the path for many others.
What’s most interesting for fans of the franchise is how the most recent entry has set up a future steeped in its past.KH3’sDLC ended with a direct referenceto Tetsuya Nomura’s most infamous project,Versus 13. After the reveal ofKH3’ssecret ending, a tradition running since the first game, it seems like players might be passing the torch from Sora and Riku to Yozora in the next game.
One way or the other, Square Enix will need to rectify the labors that Sora has completed by giving the character real respite.Sora has been through a lot inKingdom Hearts, and giving him and Riku a true moment of rest in the next game could be critical to wrapping up the story in a satisfying way. The future of theKingdom Heartsfranchise is up in the air, but establishing a real ending to its first main arc could be key to the future of its narrative.
Kingdom Hearts 4has been confirmed but is not yet officially in development.
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