Square Enix is finally getting its act together after nearly a decade of sloppiness. The transition to HD led to a massive inflation of development cycles, which led to many long awaited titles, such as Final Fantasy Versus 13 (now Final Fantasy 15) and Kingdom Hearts 3 to be delayed by over a decade.
Final Fantasy 15 will finally release this year, on September 30, a full 10 years after it was originally announced. However, for fans who have been waiting for Kingdom Hearts 3, there seems to be no reprieve in sight for now. While the game’s development seems to be making steady progress (each time we see it, it seems to be coming along well- and we’ve seen it often enough), we still don’t have a concrete release date in sight.
Apparently, even the voice actors directly working on the game are now getting antsy. Quentin Flynn, who voiced Axel in the Kingdom Hearts games, joked on Twitter, “Speaking of Axel, when is the new ‘Kingdom Hearts‘ going into production? Step it up. Quinton needs to pay his bills!” In response to a fan tweet, he clarified that he had not yet done any voice work on Kingdom Hearts 3 at all- which means that it has, at the very least, not begun localization yet.
From which we can safely conclude that Kingdom Hearts 3 is not likely to release this year- it makes sense, too. Square Enix probably don’t want it to compete directly with Final Fantasy 15. Kingdom Hearts 3 will probably be their tentpole release next year.