Kingdom Hearts 3 Team Prepared For Additional DLC

This past weekend, Kingdom Hearts 3 director Tetsuya Nomura, spoke with Gamespot about the worlds included in the game and how the use of Downloadable Content could effect what worlds are included.

So far, Big Hero 6, Tangled, Hercules and Toy Story have all been revealed as worlds that players can visit in Kingdom Hearts 3 and it looks like we could see plenty more reveals in the upcoming months before the release of the game in 2018.  Nomura said “I don’t think we’ll be keeping any worlds secret until the game is released. I think we will be introducing them leading up to launch,” he said. “Nowadays games can add content on after the fact through DLC content, so there’s no need to hide any worlds.” 

It does make sense to try to use world reveals as a promotional piece ahead of the release of the game and with the internet now allowing fans to find out information so quickly, especially in a world of gaming leaks and datamining, secrets can be hard to keep.

However the use of DLC does make an interesting case, as Nomura added “Nothing is set in stone, and I’m afraid we can’t go into details, but I have told the team: Just be prepared to be able to accommodate for something like that. We can’t suddenly develop a system where we’re accommodating for downloadable content. So it’s not confirming or denying either way, but just so that the development team will be prepared, I have informed them of making the preparations.”

There have been rumours circulating that Square Enix/Disney want the game to be released as soon as possible and the use of DLC could be used to expand the game or keep content flowing.  Could we see a Hitman style episode system or perhaps something similar to Final Fantasy, with additional stories and character.  However this will be very different to the previous games.

Nomura added “I feel like I’ve packed in much more fun than I had in my previous Kingdom Hearts titles.  Kingdom Hearts 3 is going to be our first full HD game in our current console generation.  It does involve a lot of bandwidth and resources in order to create in full HD, so our directive was to have as many elements [as possible] of gameplay included in one single world, rather than having multiple different little worlds with few elements. We wanted to pack in as many gameplay elements and fun into a single world.  If we are able to accomplish everything that we did plan out for, I’m pretty confident that people will enjoy and be fully satisfied with the end product,” he continued.

Adding DLC is standard practice for video games nowadays, adding additional stories, costumes, characters and other items is a way of extending the game and brings in more money.   Plus it means they could get the game out, before the game is “finished”.  It could also allow Kingdom Hearts to become a “live service” with the game adding additional content, keeping players engaged and playing.

What do you think of Kingdom Hearts 3 using additional DLC?  Comment below: