During today’s Nintendo Direct, Square Enix unveiled another look at theKingdom Heartsseries, which will officially be coming to the Nintendo Switch via Cloud gaming, under the new titleKingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece. Previously, following the exciting reveal thatKingdom Heartsprotagonist Sora would be coming toSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate, Nintendo also announced thatKingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 Re:Mix,Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, andKingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mindwould all be coming to Nintendo Switch just in time for the series 20th anniversary.
Kingdom Heartsis a JRPG series that blends the worlds of Square Enix and Disney, following the adventures of Sora, Donald Duck, and Goofy as they traverse through the many worlds based on Disney and Pixar films to defeat the darkness and the evil Organization 13. WhileKingdom Heartshas a reputation for having a confusing story, the games have all garnered a massive following of dedicated fans who praise the world building and characters.
RELATED:Kingdom Hearts Image Celebrates Final Fantasy 7 25th Anniversary
A Nintendo Switch port for all theKingdom Heartsgames has been long desired by fans, and earlier last month Square Enix officially confirmed that the HD collections, alongsideKingdom Hearts 3,and its DLC expansionRe:Mindwill be releasing on February 10th. The titles then received a new showcase in today’s Nintendo Direct, where the compendium of all 3 collections would be released under the titleKingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece.
The showcase ofIntergrum Masterpiececontains footage from both the originalKingdom HeartsandKingdom Hearts 2, both part of theHD 1.5 + 2.5 Re:Mixcollection, andKingdom Hearts 3, the final entry in the series “Dark Seeker Saga.” The series has since continued on with the rhythm game titleKingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, which launched on Switch and other consoles in 2020.
While it’s incredibly exciting to see this series make its way to the Switch consoles, it does come with the caveat that they are Cloud versions of the game, meaning they must always been connected to the internet in order to play them. While this is certainly a drawback from what fans had hoped,Square Enix is still “undecided” on the idea of creating native portsfor the series on the console, but it remains to be seen if this will come to fruition in the future.
For now, it’s still very exciting to finally have theKingdom Heartsseries on the Switch, meaning the series now has a home on every major console, along with havingKingdom Heartson PCas well. Hopefully this marks a change in the series development away from developing spin-offs for specific platforms.
