Developer Square Enix has announced the official title of the upcoming Kingdom Hearts mobile game - Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road. Details about the new game in the long-running series has been coming out fast, with the first tease of the new Kingdom Hearts game coming just a little more than a week ago.
Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road is set to release in Spring 2020, according to Square Enix. Not much has been revealed about how the game will actually play, and based on previous Kingdom Hearts mobile games, it’s hard to predict. Previous games like Kingdom Hearts Union X have included gacha mechanics and cards, whereas the main console releases stick to more traditional action RPG combat. What’s clear is that it will center on a younger Xehanort, the main antagonist of the Kingdom Hearts series, showing how he became the villain he is today.
Square Enix revealed the name Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road in a tweet, which reveals very little aside from the title itself. As a reply to the announcement points out, the title may be a reference to a Kingdom Hearts 3 cutscene in which Riku is asked to choose between the road to light and the road to darkness, which Xehanort takes. Before the reveal of the game’s title, it was tentatively known as Project Xehanort, which is what gave away that the game would focus on the Kingdom Hearts antagonist. At the time, Square Enix announced a “Guess the Name” campaign, challenging fans to guess the actual title of the upcoming game to win one of 10 prizes.
The reveal of Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road comes on the heels of another big event for Kingdom Hearts fans - the release of the Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind DLC. The DLC is getting mixed reviews, with Screen Rant giving it 2/5 stars, saying “you’d honestly be better off watching videos of someone else playing through Re:Mind.” Despite the cold reception, Re:Mind does offer a whole new direction for the series in one of its secret endings, which will at least entice series diehards.
Console releases have always been the main draw of the Kingdom Hearts series, with mobile spin-offs usually being less satisfying. On the other hand, the only way to fully grasp the twisting storyline of Kingdom Hearts is to play through every entry in the series. By exploring the villain’s past, Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road may offer one of the most intriguing stories of the series, and certainly one that fans will want to dive into.
Source: Square Enix/Twitter