Disney, Square Enix delay RPG compilation 'Kingdom Hearts 2.8' to 2017

By Danny Cowan Published September 15, 2016

Square Enix’s PlayStation 4 RPG compilation Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue will miss its targeted December launch date and is now set to premiere in January of 2017, the Japanese publisher announced this week.

Series creator Tetsuya Nomura offered an explanation on Twitter (via Destructoid), revealing that members of Kingdom Hearts 2.8‘s development staff put the project on the back burner in order to finish up work on Final Fantasy XV.

Kingdom Hearts merges Disney’s cartoon characters with heroes, villains, and storyline elements from Square Enix’s Final Fantasy franchise, resulting in a uniquely themed crossover RPG. Kingdom Hearts 2.8 is the latest remastered release for the series, following up on the recent PlayStation 3 remakes Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX and Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX.

Announced last year, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 is a PlayStation 4 remake of the 2012 Nintendo 3DS series sequel Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. The package also includes an all-new narrative chapter, Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage, which fills in storyline gaps surrounding Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep protagonist Aqua.

Players can get further insight into the Kingdom Hearts universe with the compilation’s third included chapter, Kingdom Hearts: Back Cover. Delivering its story snippets via non-playable HD cinematics, Back Cover serves as an introduction to the upcoming series sequel Kingdom Hearts III, which itself has been delayed multiple times since its was initially revealed.

Square Enix’s Nomura revealed this week that Kingdom Hearts 2.8 will support Sony’s upgraded PlayStation 4 Pro console at launch. Players who own the new hardware can expect to see higher-resolution textures, more consistent framerates, and HDR imaging across all supported titles.

Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue will launch first in Japan on January 12, and localized releases will hit North America and Europe on January 24, 2017.

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King Regis runs through Insomnia in A King's Tale: Final Fantasy XV.

Did you know that Square Enix released a retro-inspired beat ’em up based on Final Fantasy XV in 2016?
Even hardcore Final Fantasy fans might not remember the forgotten game well nowadays, but it’s quite the hidden gem. Titled A King’s Tale: Final Fantasy XV, the unlikely spinoff game was released as a pre-order bonus with Final Fantasy XV. It follows King Regis as he tells Noctis a bedtime story about defeating Ultros, a monstrous crystal thief causing daemons to spawn all over Insomnia and Duscae. In practice, it's a side-scrolling beat ’em up that pays homage to the classic brawlers while implementing Final Fantasy magic, enemies, and more.
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Though A King’s Tale only lasts an hour and doesn’t have co-op, it’s a polished and exhilarating experience that Final Fantasy fans shouldn’t forget. It was a pleasant surprise to find this deep within my backlog ahead of the fifth anniversary of its stand-alone release, but its existence also raised many questions.
How did this project come to be? Why is it so polished? And why aren't more short but sweet games like this used to excite fans for notable game releases? I spoke to Cord Smith, executive producer and creative director on the project, to learn its history and how this forgotten Final Fantasy spinoff connects with everything from Dead Island to Masters of the Universe to Stranger Things.
At its heart, this is a story about an ambitious marketing agency that created a new kind of game through a multi-studio effort on a tight budget. And it all starts with Dead Island 2.
Retro Revenge
In the mid-2010s, Smith worked at a creative agency called Platform. This agency would often produce screenshots and trailers used in the marketing of video games. Around the time Dead Island 2 was in development and set to release, Smith and other people involved with channel marketing at the company pondered whether it could make a retro game that marketing could use to sell a notable game.
Smith asserted that it was possible, but thought it had to be done the right way to avoid producing a bad game. He found game development and animation partners to craft a small but satisfying retro game that could tie into the then soon-to-be-released Dead Island 2.
While his pitch had a high budget, Dead Island 2 developer Deep Silver and Platform accepted it. Smith and his partners now had to build something that wasn’t done much before and hasn’t been done much since. “Sure, it was a promotional game, but we were putting it on console, and we were treating it like a real game project,” Smith tells Digital Trends.

When designing it, Smith and his development partners didn’t have a playable build of Dead Island 2. They got a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of what that game was supposed to be and additional information to draw from. The result of this effort was Dead Island: Retro Revenge, an on-rails beat ’em up set within the Dead Island universe.
“I love taking someone else’s IP and doing something that respects it and honors what they’re doing. but surprises them by where we can take it in spite of our limitations,” Smith explains. Ultimately, Deep Silver and Smith were thrilled with how Retro Revenge turned out. But there was a problem: Dead Island 2 was never released.
“Dead Island 2 did not make it to release, but Dead Island: Retro Revenge did, so they put it in a collection,” he explains. “That was a shame as we didn’t get to see it reach what we built it for. It never got to be the pre-order promotional thing that we wanted.”
"Sure, it was a promotional game, but we were putting it on console, and we were treating it like a real game project."

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If you're playing Kingdom Hearts 3, chances are this isn't your first adventure with Sora, Donald, and Goofy. The excellent PS4 and Xbox One action RPG is a faithful sequel to the PS2 classics in terms of the gameplay loop and even when it comes to the basic mechanics. Still, it's been more than 13 years since the release of Kingdom Hearts 2. Even the most dedicated of fans may need a refresher, even if you're just returning for the Re:mind DLC, as well as a primer on some of the new systems introduced here.

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