Kingdom Hearts 3 is now officially out in Japan, while it launches in the rest of the world next week. This marks, in fact, the closest that the Kingdom Hearts series has ever gotten to having a simultaneous worldwide launch (usually there has been a gap between Japanese and localized releases).
However, director Tetsuya Nomura is reconsidering doing this for future games. Speaking to Famitsu (translated by DualShockers), Nomura said that the leaks for Kingdom Hearts 3 have made him realize how “dangerous” a simultaneous release can be, and he may consider not doing this in the future.
“Four copies of the game were leaked, and all by the same source,” said Nomura. “It’s very regrettable that one person brought sorrow to many Kingdom Hearts fans for their personal gain. After this case happened, I realized how simultaneous releases worldwide can be dangerous, and for future games I’m responsible for, I might reconsider from releasing them that way, at least for the physical versions.”
To be fair, this sounds like a gross overreaction. Leaks will always happen, no matter what, and launching a game earlier in Japan than in the rest of the world doesn’t prevent that, since Japanese players can still post spoilers and ruin the thing for everyone else. Unless, of course, Nomura feels Japanese players matter more than everyone else.
Kingdom Hearts 3 launches for PS4 and Xbox One on January 29. If you’re getting the game, you’ll want to know exactly how much space you need to clear on your hard drive to install it ahead of time.