Kingdom Hearts 4 has got the community mourning Sora’s clown shoes

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Flat hair and small shoes? Sora, is that REALLY you?

Kingdom Hearts 4 screenshot
(Image credit: Square Enix)

After yesterday’s sudden Kingdom Hearts 4 announcement, fans have been sharing small details they’ve noticed from the new trailer and how they feel about Sora’s upgraded look. 

Almost unrecognisable from his previous appearances, Sora has taken on a new form for Kingdom Hearts 4. Of course, we are still currently in the early days of development and so it may all be subject to change, but fans are already preparing to say goodbye to some of Sora’s identifying features. 

Despite being an ongoing joke within the Kingdom Hearts community, it looks like Sora will no longer wear shoes that are several sizes too big for him in Kingdom Hearts 4. As spotted in the trailer, Sora now sports more normal looking and stylish shoes that compliment the rest of his outfit in Quadratum (the upcoming game’s setting). Pretty much a staple of all of Sora’s outfits in each of the Kingdom Hearts games before it, the clown shoes will be sorely missed by many players - as evidenced below. 

Another key part of Sora’s outfit currently missing in Kingdom Hearts 4 is his gloves. Every single iteration of Sora has seen the protagonist wearing some kind of hand accessory, from the smaller, more subtle gloves in Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 to the longer, more noticeable arm warmers he wears in Kingdom Hearts 3. Although the gloves were a minor part of Sora’s outfit that probably went unnoticed by many people, this transition from Sora’s cartoony clothes to a much more realistic style sort of feels like the end of an era, as some fans have expressed.

Finally, and perhaps most obviously, it looks like Sora has stopped using as much hair gel as in previous installments of the series as his hair falls slightly flatter than it did in both Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2. One Reddit user has theorized that this could be due to a Kingdom Hearts 3 spoiler,  but it's more likely that Sora’s hair has lost some of its volume due to him now residing in Quadratum therefore having a more realistic look anyway. But knowing series creator Tetsuya Nomura, there’s probably so much more going on than we realize right now. 

In other Kingdom Hearts news, it turns out Goofy's English voice actor didn't even know Kingdom Hearts 4 had been announced until a fan told them weeks after the reveal. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.