When Kingdom Hearts III was announced back at 2013’s E3, fans of the series were going nuts in anticipation for Square Enix’s biggest project. Unfortunately, that wait may be longer than some of us have expected due to the decision of transitioning between game engines.
In a recent interview with Tetsuya Nomura, the director behind Kingdom Hearts III, it was revealed that the company will be ditching their internal Luminous Engine in favor of EPIC’s Unreal Engine 4. While no direct reasoning was given for this switch, Nomura made it clear that, “The [development] is going steadily and according to the schedule” despite some rendering issues proposed by the transition.
The interview also mentions how Nomura is hard at work in redesigning outfits and character models for Sora and Riku, as well as tweaking the script.
What remains a mystery is why this change was made. Back in 2012, Square Enix revealed a tech demo for their internal Luminous Engine and it honestly looked quite spectacular. You can check it out yourself below.
On the other hand, there’s no denying the beauty and perfection of what has been revealed from Unreal Engine 4 demos. The video below is just one example, but there are dozens of other videos on the internet that showcase its beauty.
Kingdom Hearts III is due to arrive on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 at some point in the near future. We suspect a late 2016 release is a good guess, but for a more definitive window, stayed tuned for further news updates on the title.
