The future of Final Fantasy’s role in Kingdom Hearts 4 is currently uncertain, according to series director Tetsuya Nomura.
In an interview with Game Informer, Nomura discussed the lack of Final Fantasy characters in the more recent Kingdom Hearts titles explaining: "A lot of fans are saying that Kingdom Hearts is this collaboration between Disney characters and Final Fantasy characters. But I really feel like that's not the basic concept of Kingdom Hearts; that's not exactly what Kingdom Hearts is."
If you weren’t aware, in the first Kingdom Hearts game our protagonist Sora meets up with the likes of Cloud Strife, Sephiroth, Squall Leonhart (aka Leon), Yuffie, Aerith, Cid, Tidus, and more. In its sequel, Kingdom Hearts 2, we were then introduced to more Final Fantasy characters such as Tifa, Auron, Yuna, Rikku, and others. So when Kingdom Hearts 3 rolled around, fans were surprised to not see any Final Fantasy characters until the game’s DLC Kingdom Hearts Re:Mind was released.
Giving more context to why the classic Square Enix characters were ever involved in the first place, Nomura said: "When we released the first title, we had only a few original Kingdom Hearts characters. When they were interacting with really well-known, beloved Disney characters, I felt nobody really knew these new characters, so it was harder for them to stand their ground just yet." Nomura’s solution was to introduce a lot of recognizable Final Fantasy characters to "lend a hand for everyone to get to know these [original Kingdom Hearts] characters better."
As for whether we’ll see our favorite Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts 4, Nomura revealed: "That's something we definitely are thinking about. But just with the sheer number of original characters that we have now, it's hard to say what the exact balance is going to be and how it will play out in Kingdom Hearts 4."
