Kingdom Hearts 4 Trailer Has Serious Final Fantasy Versus 13 Vibes

gamerant.com:

In celebration of its 20th anniversary, Square Enix officially announced the development of Kingdom Hearts 4with a teaser trailer. Fans worldwide were excited to hear of a new mainline game so close after the release of Kingdom Hearts 3 and its subsequent DLC Re Mind.

Following the release of the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer, fans could not help but feel reminiscent of the canceled Final Fantasy Versus 13 game. Various breakdowns of the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer ensued, convincing fans more and more that the worlds of Versus 13 and Kingdom Hearts are coming together – at least, in essence.

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For the uninitiated, Final Fantasy Versus 13 was a project spearheaded by the creator and director of the Kingdom Hearts series, Tetsuya Nomura. The game was supposed to be a companion game to Final Fantasy 13 and a part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy series, but production delays and difficulties arose. Final Fantasy 13's production was prioritized, leading many of those working on Versus 13 to work on the main game instead.

Slowly but surely, Final Fantasy 13 became a part of a completely different storyline – the Lightning Saga. This threw Versus 13 and its accompanying universe up in the air, but Nomura was determined to see his project through. Then, there was the fact that the game engine used for Final Fantasy 13 – Crystal Tools – was deemed «practically unusable» for the ideas of Versus 13. Crystal Tools was not powerful enough for the open-world ideas of Nomura for Versus 13.

A new game engine had to be built from scratch, leading to the creation of Luminous Studio, which Square Enix eventually used to develop the rebranded Final Fantasy 15. The studio