The lore of Kingdom Hearts is so expansive that Tetsuya Nomura says Square Enix hired a loremaster to keep its story cohesive.
Kingdom Hearts IV is officially set for a late 2027 release. In the lead-up to its highly anticipated launch, fans have been returning to previous games in the series, to the point where a collection of Kingdom Hearts titles became one of the highest-selling games on Steam following an extended gameplay trailer shown at D23 in July.
In total, there are 13 games in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, which have been released on a bevy of different platforms over the years. That’s a lot to play through, not to mention a lot of story beats to keep track of as you go.
This isn’t a player-specific problem; even the developers find themselves getting lost from time to time, as revealed by series creator Tetsuya Nomura during an August 2026 interview with Famitsu. In fact, the storyline is so convoluted that Square Enix hired a loremaster to keep everything cohesive and explain the plot to Disney.
“As the Kingdom Hearts series has continued, the number of characters has inevitably increased, and the story has become more complex,” Nomura said. “For example, with the newly announced anime series, the number of external people involved in the Kingdom Hearts series has increased, and explaining the settings and scenarios each time has become quite difficult.
“Fortunately, the staff working on the ‘χ series’ had someone who meticulously compiled and organized the settings of past Kingdom Hearts series in an easy-to-understand way, and he was also in charge of explaining the scenarios and settings to Disney. In fact, at the beginning of Kingdom Hearts IV’s development, Disney requested that he compile the materials, so he officially joined the Kingdom Hearts IV team as a proofreader.
Nomura says this “proofreader” was in charge of communicating the overarching story to Disney. He’s a popular staff member due to how thorough his is, as he breaks down story beats, characters, and lore using visual diagrams.
“He is well-liked because he explains things to Disney as clearly as possible, using diagrams and such. His role internally is to proofread the script,” he continued. “He checks to make sure there are no inconsistencies between the current script and past settings. He was especially suitable for this project because the χ series is deeply involved. Some people might mistakenly think he’s in charge of composition, but it’s actually ‘proofreading.’”
Nomura’s answer also revealed an integral connection between Kingdom Hearts IV and the χ titles, a series of prequel games set during the Age of Fairy Tales. These games were primarily available on web browsers and mobile devices, but Nomura says that “even if you haven’t played the smartphone version, don’t worry, their personalities are depicted within [Kingdom Hearts IV].”
The fact that even Disney themselves needed a loremaster to help explain the Kingdom Hearts story is a hilarious anecdote; the plot is famously convoluted and overwhelming, to the point where we at IGN felt the need to make a video explaining the lore in just five minutes.
Virginia (she/her) is IGN’s News Editor. With ten years of experience reporting on games and entertainment, she’s got a storied background in the fighting game community, influencer news, and viral online trends. Find her on Twitter at @TheeMissGlaze.
