‘Kingdom Hearts 3’ Gets A Disney Look According To Game Director Tetsuya Nomura

While the "Kingdom Hearts 3" release date is still a while off, game director Tetsuya Nomura is revealing some great game information. caught-in-suspention.tumblr.co

“Kingdom Hearts 3” will not be released for quite some time, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it! At the D23 Expo in Japan, Square Enix released a teaser trailer for “Kingdom Hearts 3” and fans were able to get the first definite look at the forthcoming KH installment. The trailer while providing no actually indication of release date did relive fans in terms of gameplay. Despite being first released over 10 years ago, “Kingdom Hearts 3” will still possess the franchise's original gameplay, while now including large scale combat. The franchise’s original gameplay contains elements of both action and role-playing games, therefore fans should still expect to see this in the upcoming game. In the teaser trailer, Sora is featured in several combat sequences. The first scene is familiar looking, with the combat system appearing as a revamped HD version. The player screen also looks familiar with the combat menu on the left and the team layout on the right.

The next combat series shows the more present Disney influences in KH3, and according to game director Tetsuya Nomura that’s what they were going for. “Kingdom Hearts 3” will be more Disney influenced than another other game in the franchise, even down to the look of it. KH3 will have a more brush-like visual style in comparison to the more photography look, Nomura revealed that the team is attempting to revamp the visuals in the game all with Disney in mind. "We don't have an official name for it, but we have something called the 'Kingdom Shader’.” KH3’s new brush like visuals is the brainchild of Nomura and his team as they attempt to create a visual experience that is “Express Disney's 2D brushwork in 3D.”

According to Nomura, the team at Square Enix has been attempting to possess this visual quality in “Kingdom Hearts” since its first game, however the console technology could not yet support it. “Ever since the first game, we've strived for a Disney-like brush quality in the graphic gradations,” although Nomura’s team ran into issues mostly because the PlayStation 2 did possess the processing power to “freely adjust the lighting” therefore the attempt at brush-like visual were produced as textures. But now with the release of both the PS4 and Xbox One, Nomura and his team have all the home consoles they need to produce an unbelievable video game. Specifically he stated that “the new hardware has become much more capable, so there is no 'no using lights' option.”

So with over a decade of experience and state of the art home consoles, Nomura stated that “Kingdom Hearts 3” had to reborn and rebuilt. “Kingdom Shader” was created due to his desire for something new and rather evolutionary, instead of just making the graphics HD, “Kingdom Hearts 3” has rebuilt the graphics. Nomura explained his decision for the serious overhaul: “simply recreating the pre-rendered movies from 'Kingdom Hearts' and 'Kingdom Hearts 2' isn't the direction we should be going for the series in the next generations.”