Kingdom Hearts 4 teased in anniversary post from series director

News about the next Kingdom Hearts game is light, but Tetsuya Nomura has started to hint about the future of the series

Kingdom Hearts 3: ReMind / Square Enix

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep is 15 years old today, having launched on the PSP in Japan all the way back on January 9, 2010. To celebrate the anniversary, series director Tetsuya Nomura has taken to Twitter to explain the background of a few key moments in the series — and tease at a potential plot point for Kingdom Hearts 4. 

In the Birth by Sleep anniversary post, Nomura detailed a recurring theme in the series: meeting at the crossroads. As detailed in the post, major moments in the series are often preceded by characters meeting each other at a crossroads, often even the same place. The motif first appeared in the introduction for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, where Sora is lured to Castle Oblivion by a man in a black coat, and reappears in Kingdom Hearts UX, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts 3, and of course, Birth by Sleep. 

According to Nomura, this motif was born from a myth in American folklore. In the myth, Nomura explains, a young man meets a devil at a crossroads, where he makes a deal to trade his soul for the ability to play the guitar. This inspired the crossroads in Kingdom Hearts, where characters often have to give up something to gain something. 

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— KINGDOM HEARTS (@KINGDOMHEARTS) January 9, 2025

Nomura then turns to the end of Kingdom Hearts 3, where the Lost Masters – ancient keyblade wielders and faction leaders from the Age of Fairytales – meet at a crossroads for a mysterious meeting with a well-known character. He then throws in a tease for the future of the series: 

“But wait… when the Lost Masters gather at the crossroads in KH3, what is gained and what is lost?” Nomura writes. “That’s a story for another time.” 

Kingdom Hearts 4 was first announced in April 2022 and is said to be the start of a whole new story arc, known as the “Lost Master” arc. The trailer for the game showed series protagonist Sora waking up in a strange new land similar to Tokyo called Quadratum. When the Heartless attack, Sora springs into action, using fancy new moves to dispatch the creatures. 

• Read more: Tetsuya Nomura has to watch Kingdom Hearts YouTube videos to keep up with the lore that he helped create

Since then, news on the upcoming game has been almost nonexistent. A mobile game called Missing Link was set to be released last year, with a beta having been available to players on Android and iOS, but was indefinitely delayed in December. That hasn’t stopped fans from speculating about the future of the series, with “Kingdom Hearts” trending on Twitter frequently in recent months.