There’s more Kingdom Hearts 3 content coming this year, according to series director Tetsuya Nomura. And that includes both free and premium DLC, both of which will bring some desired updates to the role-playing game.
In an interview with Japanese outlet Dengeki Online, Nomura said that Square Enix will add Critical Mode to the game as a free update in the coming months. Fans will remember Critical Mode as the apex of challenge in the Kingdom Hearts series, restricting players’ health, strength, and abilities. This falls in line with a reported data mine of the game; data miners shared what they said were files hinting at a Kingdom Hearts 3 Critical Mode.
Paid DLC will fill in some of the story gaps, Nomura explained. There are plenty of those in the dense Kingdom Hearts 3, and the post-release secret movie and epilogue only made things more complicated. We shouldn’t expect answers to our questions, but there should at least be some backstory added to deepen the game’s climactic moments.
Critical Mode and any other big updates are typically thrown into Kingdom Hearts re-releases, known as Final Mixes. But Nomura said that he’d prefer to release the content piecemeal this time around.
“Up to now, we’ve prepared a separate Final Mix package releases, but this time we’re thinking of doing the additional content as DLC,” he said, based on a translation from Kotaku.
We waited long enough to get the first iteration of Kingdom Hearts 3; we’d rather not sit around to buy yet another version of it in who-knows-how-many years. Polygon reached out Square Enix for more details — this is just Nomura talking, after all — and will update with more when we receive it.
Comments
I’m about halfway through but the last thing I need is more story
By Justbackforasec on 02.28.19 11:46am
Can Kingdom Hearts really be considered a Role-Playing game?
By Starnicorn on 02.28.19 11:50am
Yeah, absolutely. Role-playing game in video game contexts doesn’t really necessitate actual "role-playing" (especially in the case of JRPGs), but rather simply denotes games that use levelling and stats systems similar to classic pen-and-paper RPGs.
By Xicon329 on 02.28.19 12:03pm
Really looking forward to Critical Mode. Hope they do some rebalancing of the current difficulties, too; it seems like enemy damage output is just too low for how powerful Sora is. That’s what made past Critical Modes really interesting! Sora’s health was usually halved, but his damage output was much higher, so it turned him into a glass cannon that rewarded defensive play and avoiding damage, rather than the "press X to win" method that carries most players through the base difficulty (which is a perfectly fine and fun and valid way to play! it’s just nice to have a harder mode as well).
By Xicon329 on 02.28.19 12:04pm
There really is no need for Final Mixes these days and especially Japan exclusive Final Mixes.
By BlakeAceington on 02.28.19 12:10pm
The KH games have never had a New Game+ mode. Does KH3 have it? I would like to think that if Square would do it for FF 15, that they would then patch it in down the road for KH3. I would hate having to go through the arduous task of collecting everything all over again for specific items like the Ultima blade, etc.
By SweetTerror on 02.28.19 4:13pm
It doesn’t have new game plus per say but you can continue from your last save AFTER you beat the game haven’t actually tried it yet.
By xetir on 03.01.19 12:22pm
Thank you for replying. Given that New Game+ has taken off now more so than ever, hopefully the game will receive that in a future update. Like I said, Final Fantasy has never had a NG+ before FF15, which admittedly every RPG should have.
By SweetTerror on 03.01.19 12:49pm
I know it’s going to be stuff about the forgotten 67th Xenahort ghost who was never born, but I briefly felt a flicker of hope for resolving the FF character stuff.
By leatherfoot on 02.28.19 5:51pm
Don’t deepen the story!! PLEASE make it more shallow and understandable!
By Tyeal on 02.28.19 6:40pm
No kidding.
By Carlos Faro on 02.28.19 8:08pm
Well, maybe in two years when the story DLC actually comes out (if then) I’ll actually want more soap opera gobbledygook. But I still won’t expect it to actually resolve anything.
By sizer on 02.28.19 7:21pm
I think the thing I want most is more chances to play as characters other than sora. There’s something satisfying about playing other characters who have a different style and personality, and I thought the different characters made titles like BBS and DDD a lot of fun
By sigilyph on 03.01.19 10:19am
I’m hoping for this, and hoping for final fantasy characters dangit :[
By Ignismadax20 on 03.02.19 9:09am
Will hopefully include some FF characters. I was disappointed they didn’t include any, but thought they might reserve it to sell DLC, as this is the first KH game to be able to.
By Jan Christoffersen on 03.05.19 4:14am