According to various reports, the next installment in the "Kingdom Hearts" franchise will not arrive this year. Instead, the game could come out sometime in 2017.
Despite the predicted launch period being pushed back by a year, this cannot be accurately considered as on official delay. After all, development firm Square Enix has not yet announced when it plans to release the game.
However, with speculations of a 2017 launch for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, many gamers are already getting tired of the long wait for "Kingdom Hearts 3." Originally, the game was expected to arrive in late 2015 since in June of that year, the studio previewed a trailer for the upcoming title during the Electronic Entertainment Expo, according to Movie Pilot.
But, with no signs pointing to the release of "Kingdom Hearts 3" by the end of 2015, fans of the series started hoping that the game will come out this year. However, according to a report by the Christian Post, Tetsuya Nomura, the creator of the franchise, confirmed that the game will arrive in 2017.
This comes as a bit of a surprise especially given the fact that 2016 had just arrived. This means Square Enix still has plenty of time to work on the game and debut it later this year. But, with the confirmation provided by Nomura, one can only speculate that the studio might be experiencing certain issues regarding the development of the game.
Maybe these issues still have something to do with the studio switching from the Luminous Engine to the Unreal Engine to create the game, which according to Nomura, was like going back to the first development stage of the title. Hopefully, Square Enix will release a statement in the near future to clarify this issue and to update fans of the "Kingdom Hearts" series.
As to what players can expect to see from the franchise, Nomura also hinted that "Kingdom Hearts 3" may not be the last entry in the series. During the interview with Now Gamer, the game creator and director noted that he intends to release future "Kingdom Hearts" games as long as he can still work on them.
