Kingdom Hearts 4. Where is it? Who knows. But Square Enix is coping with its absence by re-releasing a collection that's full of other collections of previously released games. It's a re-re-releasing frenzy!
Kingdom Hearts All-In-One package previously got a physical PS4 release back in 2020 in North America, though the publisher is now sending the collection to EU retailers in June. (Thanks, Gematsu.)
But the collection of collections is almost as lovably convoluted as the series lore.
For those not deep into the winding KH rabbit hole, the All-In-One package includes Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix (which itself bundles together two different collections of games that were once sold separately), Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue (which has three chapters of the KH saga), and Kingdom Hearts 3 (that one's simple enough – it's just one game, minus the DLC.)
Here's the full rundown of what you get with too many brackets because this is a series that requires some extra explaining:
- Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Remix
- Kingdom Hearts 1 Final Mix (the first game)
- Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories (a remaster of a remake of a card-based GBA game)
- Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (the DS game now as a non-interactive, movie-length cutscene)
- Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix (the second-ish mainline game)
- Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix (the PSP prequel)
- Kingdom Hearts Re:coded (also a remastered, movie-length cutscene)
- Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue
- Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD (the excellent 3DS game)
- Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A fragmentary passage - (a lead up to KH 3 and a pseudo-epilogue to Birth by Sleep... beating it is quicker than trying to say its name out loud)
- Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover (another movie-length cutscene that ties into the third game)
- Kingdom Hearts 3 (the third game)
Phew!
Having the whole saga so far on one disc is handy, but the lack of a bespoke PS5/Xbox Series X/ Switch 2 edition makes me think the collection still has at least one more re-re-release left in its bones, which would be hilarious for people like me who have been dealing with Kingdom Hearts 4's relative silence for the 1,103 days since its announcement.
To make matter worse (or slightly funnier depending on your perspective), Kingdom Hearts maestro Tetsuya Nomura recently revealed some potentially crucial fruit-based lore that even left Square Enix baffled. He also implied he has the whole story planned out already, in case you're worried about things flying even further off the rails.
