Square Enix revealed Kingdom Hearts 4 during the series' 20th Anniversary Event, with a trailer appearing by surprise at the end of four minutes of advertizing for an upcoming mobile game. The Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer begins by briefly establishing the setting of Quadratum, a modern-day city that looks like Shibuya, interspersed with a few slow pans over an idyllic forest. As noticed by avid Star Wars fans, hiding in the top-right corner of one of those shots is an out-of-focus metallic object that looks like the foot of an All Terrain Scout Transport from Return of the Jedi.
Have a look at a detail from the trailer beside the rear view of this model AT-ST walker, and it's hard to deny the similarity. Time for Chewbacca to become a keyblade master, I guess.
Since Disney owns the rights to Star Wars, there's nothing stopping Kingdom Hearts 4 from having a world themed around it and giving Sora a lightsaber keyblade to fight Darth Maul with. And why not? These are games that began as crossovers between the various worlds of Final Fantasy games and Disney movies, and with Kingdom Hearts 3 stretched into Disney's Pixar properties, including excursions into Toy Story and Monstropolis from Monsters Inc. A trip to the forest moon of Endor would certainly be strange, but strange is what Kingdom Hearts is all about.
Disney's ownership of Marvel could bring some really jarring possible settings like Asgard, Wakanda, or Spider-Man's New York. Pixar movies like Onward and Coco, as well as Disney productions like Encanto, Zootopia, Moana, and Wreck-It Ralph might be more likely inclusions, but think of the possibilities: Donald Duck versus Howard the Duck at long last. And with Disney's acquisition of Fox, let's throw The Simpsons and King of the Hill into the mix as well.
The trailer ends with Donald and Goofy exploring a dark and menacing place that looks like the Underworld from Disney's Hercules, a movie that's been used in several Kingdom Hearts games, with its version of Hades as a recurring villain. Now, I'm not saying Kingdom Hearts 4 will definitely feature Spider-Man and Lando Calrissian teaming up with the cast of Final Fantasy 7 Remake to punch Hades in the face, but I'm saying it's a possibility.
