Our most – and least  – wanted worlds for Kingdom Hearts 4

Now that we’ve had our first taste of the new worlds in the upcoming Kingdom Hearts 4, it’s the perfect time to start making world wishlists. The Land of the Dead from Coco is an excellent start, but it’s not going to be the only Disney fare that we’re going to see, and otherwise, Kingdom Hearts 4 has only revealed the enigmatic world of Quadratum.

We can only guess what kind of worlds are going to appear, of course. The final decision comes down to Tetsuya Nomura and whatever Disney executives particularly want to mandate. That being said, some ideas slip into Kingdom Hearts more easily than others. Here are my top picks for the best worlds in Kingdom Hearts 4, and the five worlds that I would just roll my eyes at.

Most: The Princess and the Frog

I’ll be entirely honest, the idea of a world based upon The Princess and the Frog is almost entirely carried by its villain – Dr Facilier. He’s a major charismatic presence and a real threat, but more importantly, he’s already the Shadow Man. He uses shadows as his enemies that already act like the Shadow Heartless, making him a perfect wielder of the darkness.

On top of that, his Friends on the Other Side are a wonderful, strange force to start bringing in the theme of death and the afterlife that’s being set up on this side of Sora’s adventures. While the Bayou or even New Orleans would make sense, there’s the potential for Sora to face off against Dr Facilier on The Other Side, in that technicolor vibrancy only hinted at in the film proper.

Least: Star Wars

This is a blanket statement whether or not Kingdom Hearts 4 would want to tackle the Original, Prequel, or Sequel Trilogies. Frankly, it even counts if we were going to travel to a Clone Wars world, even if that would slip in easier as a cartoon. It’s so hard to slip into Star Wars at any point for just a single world.

The most likely event here would be trying to set up Sora with a lightsaber Keyblade to fight Darth Vader either on Cloud City or the Death Star, both of which open up fine enough options for platforming or gameplay, but then bring up just what is outside of those worlds.

Should we be concerned that a Super Star Destroyer is coming for our Gummi Ship? Or are we expanding the idea of worlds to universes? There’s a good reason why Kingdom Hearts doesn’t really do much sci-fi, outside of the very contained Tron worlds.

Most: Treasure Planet

Saying that, and I fully understand this is hypocrisy, a Treasure Planet world would be amazing despite it being both space-themed and having nothing to do with death. There’s a difference between any ship going to hyperspace, and a bunch of cool flying galleons sailing the Etherium. It’s self-contained enough, offers different locations to explore, and has plenty of amazing alien pirates to fight alongside any Heartless.

Add to that, and Jim Hawkins would make a great companion in the roster, plus maybe even John Silver if we wanted to make that eventual boss fight hurt even more.

There’s even mini-game potential in the solar-sail powered surfboards, seeing as we know that Sora has been able to skateboard since Kingdom Hearts 2. I will say, though, that if Treasure Planet is off the table, I would take Muppets Treasure Island instead.

Least: Marvel

Marvel has very similar problems to Star Wars when it comes to making them into worlds for Kingdom Hearts. It’s too wide a focus with too many different settings, potential companions or stories, and even genres, not to mention licensing rights. Marvel would just become this weird bloated thing if you didn’t keep it simple, and then, why are you even getting comic books involved?

San Fransokyo in Kingdom Hearts 3 proved that an urban environment would be fun, so New York could be on the table, but also showed off the difficulty in actually getting the story to stick.

Even in a best-case scenario where we just stick to Spider-Man as a hero, the baggage of the Marvel Cinematic Universe just makes the whole thing sound either exhausting or vapidly pointless. I guess if you wanted to keep the afterlife thing going, dealing with Hela from Thor Ragnarok would work.

Most: Moana

Moana hits so many positive points when it comes to a potential Kingdom Hearts world. Moana or Maui would make great companions, there’s a fun navigation system on the water, and plenty of opportunities to justify fights.

Plus, the drama and angst that Sora could have on a raft travelling the waves – just like how he and his friends wanted to right back at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts, before everything else happened.

Moana also has Lalotai, also known as the Realm of Monsters, a magical underworld full of legendary creatures and potential enemies. This area is prime material for platforming, combat, vivid visuals, and a fight against the legendary crab Tamatoa. Moana is as ready-made a Kingdom Hearts world as there ever was.

Least: Cars

Let me be entirely clear – it would be hilarious to have a Cars world. If you went to some world in Kingdom Hearts 4 and it said ‘Radiator Springs’, I wouldn’t even be mad, because we’d be about to see something truly heinous. I just don’t think that forcing Sora, Donald, and Goofy to become cars will be worth it when the gameplay would be downright awful.

The Lion King world in Kingdom Hearts 2 messed with the formula just enough when turning you into a lion, but at least there was somewhere to hold your keyblade. Could you even do any reasonable combat in a Cars world? Either it would have to be reduced entirely into a side-mode involving racing, or you’re just going to be running over Heartless. Hilarious, sure, but probably not a cohesive experience.

Most: The Emperor’s New Groove

The Emperor’s New Groove is such an unlikely pick for a new Kingdom Hearts game, but that doesn’t mean I want it any less. Much like The Princess and the Frog, this is pushed heavily by the film’s main antagonist – the evil advisor and sorceress Yzma. Well, part sorceress, part alchemist, and in the film’s original concept, mortician.

Yzma is a delight of a villain that would absolutely revel in command of the Heartless, but it’s that original version of The Emperor’s New Groove – The Kingdom of the Sun – that I find the perfect potential for Kingdom Hearts.

There, Yzma wants to block out the sun, casting the land in eternal darkness – a perfect kind of motivation for a villain in Kingdom Hearts, with the added benefit of getting cool South American-style environments and lush set pieces.

Least: Avatar

It’s funny to even think of the Avatar series (the one with the blue people) as a Disney property, but it’s now shown up at the various Disney parks, so there’s no reason it couldn’t suddenly appear in Kingdom Hearts. The world of Pandora would make for a pretty great video game environment, but the center of the story feels so weird for Kingdom Hearts.

Maybe if Sora just fights different Heartless as a Na’vi it will be okay, but the moment he’s facing off against mercenaries in mech suits, fighting at the behest of a megacorporation, we may have gone a little too far.

Most: The Owl House

Going to the Boiling Isles from The Owl House would be a wild swing for the fences, as up until this point Kingdom Hearts has only ever kept their world adaptations to full-on theatrical releases.

However, if we did want to start branching out, The Owl House has everything Kingdom Hearts could need – a ready-made companion with fighting skills in Luz, a tyrannical villain in Emperor Belos, and strange connections to death and the afterlife throughout the story.

The Owl House would be an easy setup for Kingdom Hearts, and an incredible way to open the door to even more potential worlds. Gravity Falls could be a fun time as well, or Phineas and Ferb, or even Ducktales.

Least: Any of the live-action remakes

Live action can work with Kingdom Hearts, as we’ve seen with the Pirates of the Caribbean worlds. The weird contrast between the realistic and the cartoony characters is part of the charm rather than a negative, and it wouldn’t be bad to lean into that.

However, as a blanket rule, when a cartoon can be used, it should be. There’s no need to suddenly be running with photorealistic lions, nor adapting the more boring version of Lilo and Stitch.

The most likely of these to slip through would be something like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, as it genuinely could have some interesting ideas coming back to Wonderland so many games later. The main issue, however, is that the more real something is, the more boring it’s going to be to represent in-game.

The color palettes of these remakes are often dull, and when you’re going through Kingdom Hearts, you want to maximise the goofy cartoon nature when you can.

The Wildcard: Any Final Fantasy world

So in Kingdom Hearts, whenever a Final Fantasy character shows up, they’ll either be in the Olympus Colosseum from Hercules, or in one of Kingdom Hearts original worlds like Hollow Bastion or Twilight Town. However, there’s no real reason why we can’t drop in to some of the cool Final Fantasy settings that might happen to be around.

Top of these is, of course, Final Fantasy VII, allowing the cast to finally update their personalities from being a time capsule of Advent Children.

However, if they want to do another interesting tie-in, then getting involved with Eorzea from Final Fantasy XIV has plenty of combat opportunities, and the chance for a Kingdom Hearts event in the MMORPG. You can’t say better corporate synergy than that.

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