Kingdom Hearts 4 Set for Late 2027, Companion Anime Series Coming to Disney+

Tane Wharekura15/08/20265 min read

Square Enix and Disney confirmed on Friday night that Kingdom Hearts 4 is targeting a late 2027 launch, unveiling the game’s first Disney/Pixar world alongside a surprise second announcement: an original Kingdom Hearts anime series for Disney+ and Disney Channel. Both reveals landed during the Disney Entertainment Showcase, the studio’s flagship presentation at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event in Anaheim, California.

Two big announcements were made during the Disney Entertainment Showcase, with “Coco” star Benjamin Bratt announcing that “Kingdom Hearts IV” is coming and the world of “Coco” will be brought into the universe. A new trailer followed, giving fans their first extended look at Sora’s next adventure since Kingdom Hearts III closed out in 2019.

Coco Becomes Kingdom Hearts 4’s First Confirmed Disney World

The Friday showcase trailer showed off the first official Disney/Pixar world that Sora will visit for the next game, with Sora set to visit the world of Pixar’s Coco, following many of the story beats of that movie. The footage also gave first looks at some of the series’ most prominent characters, including King Mickey, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Hades from Disney’s Hercules.

A dedicated Coco crossover clip went further, with characters from the film like Miguel and Papá Héctor appearing in a musical sequence, along with some gameplay from the Coco world. It marks the first time Sora’s journey has crossed paths with a Pixar property built around Día de los Muertos, adding a distinctly different visual and tonal register to the series’ usual roster of Disney classics.

Interestingly, the new footage showed Mickey, Donald, and Goofy trying to find Sora after the events of Kingdom Hearts III led to his disappearance, and it looks like Sora might be split from Donald and Goofy for some of the Disney worlds, as neither of them show up in any of the Coco world. That structural detail hints at a more fragmented, exploratory party setup than previous mainline entries.

Late 2027 Window Ends an Eight-Year Wait Since KH3

No firm release date was given, but the studio finally attached a timeframe to a game that has been in development for years. The trailer confirms a release window for Kingdom Hearts IV, with fans able to expect the Square Enix sequel to launch sometime in late 2027, a whopping eight years after the launch of Kingdom Hearts III.

Kingdom Hearts 4 was first revealed back in 2025, and this is the clearest signal yet that Square Enix is moving toward a concrete launch. As with any Kingdom Hearts entry, though, the studio’s track record for shifting dates means fans are treating the window as provisional rather than locked in.

On the platform side, the game is releasing in late 2027 and is now available to wishlist on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, Nintendo Switch 2, Steam, and Epic Games Store. That’s the widest simultaneous platform spread the mainline series has ever targeted, including Nintendo’s newest console for the first time since Kingdom Hearts III arrived on the original Switch via cloud streaming.

Kingdom Hearts: The Series Brings Tetsuya Nomura to Disney+

The bigger surprise of the night may have been the second reveal. “Kingdom Hearts” is coming to Disney Channel and Disney+ as an anime series, the company said during the D23 Disney Entertainment Showcase on Friday. A teaser image accompanied the announcement, though no premiere date has been set.

Crucially, this isn’t a straight retelling of the games. The show is being developed in partnership with video game creator Tetsuya Nomura and the creative team at series developer Square Enix, reimagining the iconic adventure with a brand-new story that will expand on the universe of “Kingdom Hearts” while celebrating the characters that have captured the hearts of millions of fans around the world.

Disney Kids & Family president Ayo Davis framed the project as a way to bring the long-running franchise to a wider audience. “Kingdom Hearts has captivated gamers everywhere with its unique blend of adventure and imagination,” Davis said. “There’s something really exciting about taking a world fans have spent years exploring through the games and bringing it to life in a completely new way. And with a creative team that is working closely with the legendary Tetsuya Nomura, our new series will be unmistakably Kingdom Hearts, while giving fans a whole new way to experience the world they love.”

Given Nomura’s direct involvement, series watchers expect the show to carry canonical weight rather than sit as a side story disconnected from the games. Reporting on the reveal also noted the scale of what Disney and Square Enix are building on: the series has shipped over 39 million units worldwide, Disney noted in a release.

A Dedicated Kingdom Hearts Panel Follows on Saturday

Friday’s showcase was framed as a teaser ahead of a fuller, series-specific panel the following day. Fans can expect more Kingdom Hearts out of D23, as the next day there will be a separate panel focused solely on the series, livestreamed on the official Kingdom Hearts YouTube channel. That timing suggests Square Enix held back deeper gameplay and story details for a dedicated audience rather than folding everything into the broader entertainment showcase.

For Australian and New Zealand fans planning to catch the follow-up panel live, the Saturday session’s stated Pacific Time slot falls in the very early hours of Sunday morning locally, making the YouTube upload the more realistic viewing option for most of the region. With Nintendo Switch 2 confirmed among the wishlist platforms, local players already invested in Nintendo’s newest hardware now have a firm reason to keep an eye on Kingdom Hearts 4’s eventual regional storefront listing.