While Square Enix might be largely quiet about Kingdom Hearts 4 after its announcement, it looks like development on the title is well underway. As caught by Genki_JPN, voice actor Zach Pokres – ZaccActs on social media – has revealed through a post on X that he has been working on an RPG being developed by Square Enix over the last year.
“These are just projects all in the last YEAR,” posted Pokres, with one of the projects listed being Kingdom Hearts 4. “All high-quality projects/have taken over the industry. I’m in studio rosters that most people would DREAM of being in, all without an agent and just always pushing.”
“Like anyone, I started off small. Doing grunt VA work and casting calls and I spent years before and after ‘fame’ to make a name for myself as not only a VA, but a person just putting themselves out there every step of the way.”
Pokres did mention that he got specific permission from Square Enix to include the mention of Kingdom Hearts 4 in his post, alongside other titles he has worked on including MiSide and Indigo Park. When it comes to Kingdom Hearts 4, however, it is currently unknown which character he will be voicing.
Voice work typically tends to be some of the last work that is done on a game in development terms, well after animations, programming, and other aspects have been taken care of. Typically, this is to reduce the number of times a voice actor would have to be called back into the studio because of changes in scripts. While we can’t quite be sure about what this means for the development progress of Kingdom Hearts 4, Pokres’ post might indicate that we are close to seeing Square Enix make an official announcement.
Back in January, franchise director Tetsuya Nomura had teased some of the themes we would see in Kingdom Hearts 4. In a post on X celebrating the 15th anniversary of the franchise, Nomura said that Kingdom Hearts 4 would include crossroads as one of the core themes of its story.
“In this video, three Keyblade wielders clad in armour wait for someone at a crossroads,” he posted, referring to a teaser for Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep that was included as a secret movie in Kingdom Hearts 2. “Meeting someone at a crossroads is actually a recurring motif in Kingdom Hearts.”
“The first time a crossroads appears in Kingdom Hearts is in [Chain of Memories], which is about losing something to gain something,” Nomura continued. “And in fact, all subsequent appearances of crossroads have the same significance.”
More recently, Square Enix had announced that it was cancelling the development of smartphone game Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link. The company said that this was done because “It would be difficult for us to offer a service that players would find satisfactory over a long period, leading us to the decision to cancel development.”
Kingdom Hearts 4 was announced all the way back in April 2022. The game doesn’t yet have a release date.
