Kingdom Hearts III’s Toy Story World Is A True Sequel That Takes Place After Toy Story 2

Tetsuya Nomura had more to share on Kingdom Hearts III and its recently revealed Toy Story world, as well as some talk on Final Fantasy VII Remake and working on Xenoblade Chronicles 2, in an interview with Famitsu magazine. [Thanks, Hachima.]

Here are some highlights from the interview:

• When asked about an estimate of when in 2018 we can expect to see Kingdom Hearts III’s release, Nomura laughed asking to please wait a little longer.

• A Toy Story world is something he wanted since Kingdom Hearts II. He repeated negotiations saying that it’s an absolute must-have for Kingdom Hearts III.

• In terms of Toy Story’s timeline, it takes place after the events of the second film. It doesn’t take place in a parallel world, but think of it as Kingdom Hearts III’s happenings as being part of the Toy Story timeline.

• While it wasn’t shown in the recent trailer, when Sora first goes to the Toy Story world, he’s mistaken as a character from a game that was recently released in this world.

• The staff from Disney were astonished to see Square Enix’s reproduction of Toy Story’s characters.

• Being able to ride a robot and fight is something Nomura told the development team that they’ll have from the very start of development. They’re working on gimmicks for when you go to different floors that aren’t for selling toys.

• A Big Hero 6 world is also going favorably, but we’ll have to wait longer to hear any possible follow-ups on that.

• (On Final Fantasy VII Remake) cutscenes and other parts may be farther ahead in development than Kingdom Hearts III, but due to the change in development from an external to internal focus, it’ll be a while until we hear anything big.

• (On character design work for Xenoblade Chronicles 2) Tetsuya Takahashi is a sempai and also a teacher-figure who took great care of Nomura during his early days at Squaresoft. For this reason, Nomura says he has no reason to ever turn down a request from the Xenoblade Chronicles executive director who is also the head of Monolith Soft. As for the design work for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Nomura is mostly finished with his part of the work.

• (On other titles he’s working on) Nomura currently isn’t directing any other titles for the time being, but there are several that he’s working on.

Kingdom Hearts III releases in 2018 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.