Trivia / Kingdom Hearts III

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• Acting for Two:
  • As is fitting for a character whose plans hinge on duplicating himself, Akio Ōtsuka does triple duty in this installment; not only does he return to voice Terra-Xehanort and Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, he also plays the original Master Xehanort, taking over for his late father.
  • Corey Burton pulls quadruple duty in this game. On top of being Yen Sid, he also channels Christopher Lee for Ansem the Wise, and also voices Zeus and Dale.
  • Richard Epcar voices both Ansem, Seeker of Darkness/Xehanort's Heartless and Terra-Xehanort.
  • Jim Cummings (1952) voices Winnie-the-Pooh, Tigger, and Pete.
  • Robin Atkin Downes voices both Luxord and Davy Jones. And in Re𝄌Mind, he also voices Yozora's driver, who may or may not be Luxord himself.
  • Haley Joel Osment reprises his roles as both Sora and Vanitas.
  • Jesse McCartney not only plays Roxas and Ventus, but at one point, he plays them while the two characters are in battle at the same time. Roxas is given a noticeably deeper voice than Ventus.
• Approval of God:
  • The staff that worked on Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. are Kingdom Hearts fans themselves and were heavily involved in the storytelling process and character design for the Toy Story world, and declared that the story is "Toy Story 2.5". Pixar even told Nomura that they consider Kingdom Hearts to be canon.
  • The creators of Tangled, Frozen, and Big Hero 6 have also voiced excitement for their films' inclusions in the game.
• Banned in China: Promotional screenshots of the game have blurred the Pooh Bear in white at one Weibo post coverage. However, Pooh Bear wasn't actually censored in the same way in-game.
• B-Team Sequel: This game was developed by the Osaka Team, who were responsible for the non-numbered 3D titles starting with Re:Chain of Memories in 2007, instead of the Tokyo Team who were on board for Kingdom Hearts I and II. The reason for this is that, while Nomura intended for his original team to be involved in III, some members were either not working at Square Enix anymore, transferred to other parts of Square, or working on other games with Tokyo Team, the original team from both I and II either wasn't the same, or the ones who were still at that department were too busy to make III.
• Content Leak: Copies of Kingdom Hearts III except (according to Nomura) the secret ending and the epilogue were released over a month before the official launch date. Though perhaps either because only a few individuals got the copies and/or out of respect for those that wished to remain spoiler-free, most of the game wasn't spoiled. This changed over the next few weeks as more people got a hold of early copies, most spoilers at best being gameplay until a week before release, in which spoilers went all out.
• Contest Winner Cameo: In April 2018, Square Enix held a contest for players of Kingdom Hearts Union χ, where three hundred lucky players would have their characters' names included in Kingdom Hearts III in some capacity. These names appear when Ephemer and the ancient Keyblade wielders help Sora fight one of the bosses in the Keyblade Graveyard, a la NieR: Automata.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Nomura and other staff members regretted announcing the game at E3 2013, claiming it was too early in development for such an announcement, but they wanted to Throw the Dog a Bone and at least announce the title, even though it was still years away.
  • An interview with Nomura revealed that due to the leak fiasco, it's soured his mood on worldwide physical releases, with no mention on digital releases. Whether or not this will impact Kingdom Hearts in the future remains to be seen.
  • In the Ultimania interview, Nomura admitted that the production staff for the game was angry with him due to the lack of Final Fantasy characters.
  • In an interview with Sora, Riku, and Kairi's Japanese voice actors, they made some passive-aggressive jokes that indicated that none of them were happy with how Kairi was treated in the game and said they all wished more for her.
  • At a convention, Tony Anselmo said that no context was given for the lines he had to record, and so he delivered the subsequently memed line "This looks a good spot to find some ingredients" the way he did under the impression it was a single-scene line. He followed this up by saying that had he known it was going to repeated throughout the game, he would have delivered it in a quicker way.
• Creative Differences:
  • Nomura has stated that it was difficult to develop the worlds based on Pixar films and the more recent Disney films because the creative staffs on those movies all wanted to be involved in the writing process. Because of this, it took over a year for Nomura to get full story approval from Disney.
  • After Kingdom Hearts II, Nomura flat out told Disney that he wanted to include Pixar properties (Toy Story especially) or he wouldn't make Kingdom Hearts III, and even then, it initially took Pixar several years to get back to him with confirmation, let alone OK the designs and stories of the respective worlds.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: Lumpy is voiced by Amelia Stanger, the sister of his original actor from Pooh's Heffalump Movie and My Friends Tigger & Pooh, Kyle Stanger.
• Defictionalization:
  • The announcement of Sora and company turning into action figures while visiting the world of Toy Story was made all the sweeter with the announcement of real life action figures.
  • The Dissidia Final Fantasy NT toyline in the Toy Story world is based on the figures made for the game. There are also figures for Final Fantasy XV, which Verum Rex is an expy of. Each figure in the Trading Arts series costs about $30 to $40 USD, while the Play Arts series (meant more for hobby and collection) are over $100 USD at the known minimum.
  • In a way only this series can, the defictionalization actually turns in on itself, in a meta way rarely seen: Not only is Yozora a stealth reference to the original Final Fantasy Versus XIII, he's an actual Game Within a Game character in the Toy Box. And then there's whatever in the world the "Yozora" ending teaser implies...
  • Square Enix's September 26th livestream for Tokyo Game Show online revealed that an actual chess set based on the one Young Xehanort and Eraqus were using is being made. It's absurdly expensive and is only intended to be used as decoration, rather than actually functioning as a board game.
• Development Gag: In the DLC, all of the bosses in the Garden of Assemblage have numbers above their doors. This is a reference to the rank numbers all of the Real Organization XIII was supposed to have in the main game but got scrapped.^note If you are curious, I is Master Xehanort, II is Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, III is Xemnas, IV is Xigbar, V is Luxord, VI is Larxene, VII is Marluxia, VIII is is Saïx, IX is Terra-Xehanort, X is Dark Riku, XI is Vanitas, XII is Young Xehanort, and XIII is Xion.
• Executive Meddling:
  • About a year into the development cycle, the higher-ups at Square Enix mandated that Kingdom Hearts III had to be made with Unreal Engine 4. The team had to switch over from the engine they were already using and ditch much of their work, contributing to the game's long development cycle.
  • It's been mentioned in interviews that each of the Disney movies featured has included certain guidelines as to how Square Enix can represent and use them in the game, and that certain properties are more tightly protected than others, especially Cash-Cow Franchise Frozen. This accounts for why the Arendelle arc felt more of a retelling than an alternative take as Square Enix wasn't allowed to toy with the properties as they see fit.
  • While Disney had the stricter of rules for Tangled and Frozen, Pixar also took their sweet time getting back to Nomura on confirmation and approval for the better part of a decade. One of the caveats for the use of Toy Story was that it not be represented with a simple Broad Strokes retelling of the movies in an alternate version of the setting like Kingdom Hearts usually does, but must instead expand on the existing world of the movies, hence why Toy Box’s plot is an interquel set between the second and third films.
• God-Created Canon Foreigner: The "Galaxy Toys" area of the Toy Story world and the toys that appear in it are original creations that haven't appeared in any of the films. However, Pixar did have a hand in creating some of the designs. The same goes for parts of the Monsters, Inc. factory; it contains new areas that the audience got to see little of in the original movie, such as the outside zone, which can now be viewed up close in this game.
• God Never Said That:
  • For a time, there was a rumor that this game would be the final game in the series. What Nomura actually said was this would be the last Kingdom Hearts game in the Xehanort Saga, and that the franchise would continue to focus on Sora beyond that.
  • In 2017, the Japanese Xbox site removed the listing for the game, but it was later put back up. In the interim, some started claiming that the port had been canceled, but this was never the case.
  • They also never said the game would be released in 2020. What was actually said was that the release window for Kingdom Hearts III, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Marvel's Avengers was within the next three years. Indeed, the release date was announced at D23 2017 to be 2018, which was later pushed to January 2019.
  • There was also a rumor put out as fact after D23 Japan 2018 that the release date was to be formally revealed at E3 2018. This was never officially stated, and the release date was actually revealed at an orchestra concert a few days before E3. To be fair, somehow this didn't leak, meaning E3 featured the first release date announcement seen by the general public.
  • The epilogue and secret ending were released in a day-1 patch, to prevent them from being spoiled before the game's release if (as actually happened) the game were to be leaked. This was commonly misunderstood as the entire ending being held back.
  • Ever since the game’s release, persistent fan speculation has opined that the death of Phil and Eeyore’s Japanese voice actors led to their being Demoted to Extra and Put on a Bus, respectively, as a tribute to their late actors. No official word has been made on the subject, however. Phil’s tiny cameos can be explained by how Olympus doesn’t focus on the coliseum anymore, and Eeyore isn’t the only character removed from Hundred Acre Wood to begin with.
  • Likely to express their frustration at the location not being openly playable, many fans have spread the rumor that Scala ad Caelum was cut as a playable world since it’s only explorable for a few moments before the Final Boss begins. This actually has officially been refuted and ended up moot when the DLC had it open to be explored in Data Greeting.
• Lying Creator:
  • Similar to Nomura's "lie" regarding a scene in a Dream Drop Distance trailer, the 2013 reveal trailer shows Sora picking up the Master's Defender Keyblade on Destiny Islands. This wasn't intended as an actual story event but simply as a good thematic visual for the game...which ended up being an actual scene in the final game.
  • Leading up to the Square Enix's E3 conference in 2015, they stated that they would not being showing any footage of the game. When it came time for them to announce something related to Kingdom Hearts, it turned out to be a trailer for the mobile port of the browser game, Kingdom Hearts χ. Following that trailer, they surprised everyone with a gameplay trailer for Kingdom Hearts III.
  • Nomura said that a big theme of the game was "closure" and that the Xehanort Saga would have a definitive resolution, which got many peoples' hopes up that the story would be close-ended and the following saga would start fresh. It turns out that while closure is given to certain characters' situations and Xehanort himself had a definitive resolution, the rest of the game's ending is unfortunately rather typical of the series... There are many plot threads (including yet more new ones) once again left hanging, as well as a last-minute cliffhanger where Sora fades away as a price for misusing the Power of Waking.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Schwarzgeist, one of the game's secret bosses, is from the game Einhänder, which did not have a European release.
• Meaningful Release Date: Kingdom Hearts III was set to be released in 2018, 13 years after the previous numbered title, Kingdom Hearts II. Then it got delayed to January 2019... which, if you want to be technical, is the 13th month of 2018. (2019 is the 13th anniversary of the Western release of Kingdom Hearts II, however.)
  • The Re𝄌Mind DLC released on PS4 on January 23, 2020, Day 359 after the international release of the base game.
• Missing Trailer Scene: Sora, Donald, and Goofy fighting Heartless and Nobodies outside of Mysterious Tower, a scene from one of the earliest trailers, isn't in the game.
  • Most stuff shown in the early trailers from before they actually started programming the game aren't in the game, like Sora battling the wave of Heartless in Twilight Town in his KHII outfit and his riding the wave. He doesn't fight it on that side of Twilight Town and never rides the wave of Heartless in the game, though Aqua does in 0.2.
  • The original version of the scene where Sora, in his KHII outfit, Donald, and Goofy discover Master Eraqus' Keyblade on Destiny Islands is also not there. In fact, it was just meant to be promo material for the game only until Nomura thought to reincorporate it into the game where it is. It was then updated when they got to that part of the game to have Sora in his KHIII outfit and in Unreal Engine 4 as opposed to Luminous.
  • From the May 2018 demo build of the game, in Toy Box, Rex calls Donald and Goofy Magia and Aegis in one of the early cutscenes from the world. This was removed from the final build most likely because it was already a bit of a stretch for Rex to call Sora Yozora, and it was even more so to think Donald and Goofy were two of Yozora's companions from the Verum Rex game.
• The Original Darrin:
  • Alyson Stoner returns as Xion for the first time since her debut game, 358/2 Days, and its HD cinematic version.
  • After being replaced by Brooks Wheelan for Big Hero 6: The Series, T.J. Miller reprises his role as Fred from the original film.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Woody is played by Jim Hanks, who voices him in merchandise and spin-off material ever since the Disney's Animated Storybook and Disney's Activity Center series, replacing his brother Tom Hanks from the movies. Likewise, Buzz is played by Mike MacRae, the designated video game voice actor for the character since the Toy Story 3 tie-in game, replacing Tim Allen, Patrick Warburton, and Pat Fraley from the movies, the animated series and the Disney Theme Parks' Buzz Lightyear attractions respectively.
  • Christopher Swindle, Carlos Alazraqui, and JP Manoux voice Sulley, Mike, and Randall, in lieu of John Goodman, Billy Crystal, and Steve Buscemi. The replacement voice actor for Randall is usually Peter Kelamis, so Manoux replaces him as well.
  • While Vexen returns with a speaking role, he is voiced by Shigeru Chiba in Japan due to the death of his original one, Nachi Nozawa. Same goes for Pete's Japanese voice as Tōru Ōhira has likewise died. Avoided in English, where Derek Stephen Prince and Jim Cummings (1952) reprise the roles.
  • Hayden Panettiere confirmed that she wasn't called in to record for the game, and Alyson Stoner instead voiced Kairi, carrying on from 0.2, likely cementing Stoner as Kairi's permanent voice actor.
  • Zachary Gordon, Tristan Chase, and Ashley Boettcher replace Justin Cowden, Sean Marquette, and Jessica Dicicco as Hayner, Pence, and Olette respectively.
  • Jared Butler voices Jack Sparrow, replacing both Johnny Depp and James Arnold Taylor from the films and Kingdom Hearts II, respectively.
  • Rabbit was voiced in II by his 90’s/00’s voice actor Ken Sansom. As Sansom passed away in 2012, Rabbit's new regular voice actor, Tom Kenny, voices him here.
  • Roo is now voiced by Aidan McGraw (best known for his role was young Red in The Angry Birds Movie).
  • Robin Atkin Downes voices Davy Jones, replacing Bill Nighy.
  • Kelsey Lansdowne voices Rapunzel, replacing Mandy Moore (who ironically voiced Aerith in the first game).
  • Master Xehanort was a necessary case, as both his Japanese and English actors passed away in 2015. Now he's voiced by Akio Ōtsuka (the son of the previous Japanese actor) and Rutger Hauer (the man who played the Replicant Roy Batty in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner) in those respective languages. After Hauer's death in 2019, a mere six months after the game's release, the role was recast in Re𝄌Mind with Christopher Lloyd.
  • Sarge is voiced by Piotr Michael following the death of his original voice, R. Lee Ermey.
  • After the death of his classic voice actor Alan Young (who previously voiced him in Birth by Sleep), Scrooge McDuck is voiced by neither David Tennant (his voice for the current DuckTales (2017) series) nor John Kassir (voice for the new Mickey Mouse (2013) shorts). This time, he's voiced by Enn Reitel, who's also from Scotland.
  • David Kaye voices Olympus' narrator, rather than the long-deceased Charlton Heston.
  • Just like in Kingdom Hearts II, Brian George voiced Hector Barbossa, replacing Geoffrey Rush.
  • Andrea Bowen voices Aerith replacing Mandy Moore and Mena Suvari, as Bowen has been established as Aerith's official voice actress since Crisis Core.
  • Barbara Dirikson voices the Fairy Godmother for her cameo in the DLC, replacing Russi Taylor after her death.
  • Minoru Inaba replaces George Tokoro as Buzz in the Japanese version of the game.
• The Other Marty:
  • Due to Pierre Taki's cocaine-related bust in March 2019, Square Enix announced that he would be replaced as Olaf for future patches, with Shunsuke Takeuchi being his replacement starting with Frozen II.
  • Due to the death of Rutger Hauer, who was already a replacement for the late Leonard Nimoy, Christopher Lloyd was cast as his replacement as Master Xehanort for the Re𝄌Mind DLC. Lloyd dubbed over scenes from the base game that were revisited for consistency's sake, much like how Corey Burton dubbed over the absent Christopher Lee for the 1.5 cutscenes of Days.
• Overtook the Manga: The game heavily utilizes the plot of Kingdom Hearts χ, despite the mobile game's narrative still being ongoing at III's release and a large portion of its established story had yet to be released internationally.
• Pre-Order Bonus:
  • Japan features different bonuses based on the retailer: Seven Net Shopping is distributing a reskin of the Kingdom Key and a rubber phone charm, Amazon is distributing a PS4 theme, and the Square Enix store is including the Steelbook.
  • There are two physical deluxe editions in North America: a more basic version with a Steelbook case, exclusive enamel pin, and small concept art book, and a more expensive version featuring the above along with action figures of Sora, Donald, and Goofy in their Toy Box forms. GameStop distributed cloth posters based on certain worlds, while Amazon included the Seven Net Shopping/Dawn Till Dusk Keyblade mentioned above. Both North American console marketplaces also feature digital deluxe editions with exclusive dashboard themes and reskins of the Star Seeker Keyblade: the Phantom Green for Xbox and Midnight Blue for PS4. Each Keyblade has different status buffs, with the Phantom Green buffing Thunder, Midnight Blue buffing Blizzard, and Dawn Till Dusk buffing Fire.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Skrillex, who co-wrote the opening theme "Face My Fears" with Utada Hikaru, is an avowed fan of the series and has made remixes of its music.
  • Ryan Potter, the voice of Hiro Hamada, has been a fan of the games and was happy to be in them.
  • Erika Harlacher has been a long time fan of the series and voiced a few minor characters (her Twitter mentioning an NPC in Twilight Town and the newscaster in a cutscene for San Fransokyo).
  • Dylan Sprouse (Yozora) mentioned on Twitter being a fan of the franchise when he announced his role in the DLC.
• Refitted for Sequel:
  • Nomura wanted to have Toy Story representation in some fashion as far back as the first Kingdom Hearts, pitching a world incorporating Al's Toy Barn, Pizza Planet, and Andy's house; Buzz and Woody were also almost included as Summons in the Final Mix version of Kingdom Hearts II. On both occasions, Nomura's ideas were declined due to Disney and Pixar's relationship at the time. III includes a fully fledged world based on the movie series, with Buzz and Woody being its temporary party members.
  • Monsters, Inc. was also considered for II, before eventually getting a world in this game.
  • Wreck-It Ralph was supposedly going to appear in the cancelled Fragmented Keys mobile game (which may or may not be real).
  • According to Nomura, the ending features something he'd been wanting to do in the series since the very first game. This wound up being The Final World, a spiritual world that is basically the last stop before the afterlife, and where Sora is "conceptually in pieces". Given that it's Kairi's belief in Sora that allows him to not pass on to the afterlife and put himself back together, it's likely Nomura wanted this as part of the event where Sora becomes a Heartless in the first game. This also aligns with cryptic remarks Nomura has made in the past about how he wanted to make the Sora-Heartless event of the first game "a little longer".
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: After Pierre Taki, Olaf's Japanese voice actor, was arrested for cocaine usage, his performance was replaced by Shunsuke Takeuchi in a later patch of the game.
• Role Reprise: Returning actors/actress for the Disney worlds featured include:
  • Idina Menzel as Elsa, Kristen Bell as Anna, Josh Gad as Olaf, and Johnathan Groff as Kristoff in the Frozen world. Throw in animator Paul Briggs reprising the role of Marshmallow, and we have only the second world in the series in which the entire original cast returns, after the Lilo & Stitch world.
  • Zachary Levi as Flynn/Eugene and Donna Murphy as Mother Gothel in the Tangled world.
  • John Ratzenberger as Hamm, Wallace Shawn as Rex, and Jeff Pidgeon as the Little Green Men/Squeeze Toy Aliens in the Toy Story world.
  • Kevin R. McNally as Joshamee Gibbs in the Pirates of the Caribbean world.
  • Susan Egan as Meg, James Woods as Hades, and Tate Donovan as Hercules in the Hercules world.
  • Ryan Potter as Hiro Hamada, Scott Adsit as Baymax, Jamie Chung as Go Go, Genesis Rodriguez as Honey Lemon, and T.J. Miller as Fred from Big Hero 6. Khary Payton also reprises his role as Wasabi from Big Hero 6: The Series.
  • Jim Cummings (1952) as Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, and Pete. Likewise, Tom Kenny returns to voice Rabbit.
  • Mary Gibbs reprises her role as Boo, albeit through archival recordings. Same with the two girls who played young Anna and Elsa in Frozen, Eva Bella and Katie Lopez.
  • Michael J. Gough voices Gopher for the first time since 2006, never mind the fact this is Gopher's first appearance in any media since that time.
  • Besides his role as The Other Darrin, Jared Butler returning to voice Jack Sparrow is a reprisal from both the video game adaptation of At World's End (which is funnily enough the same film adapted here) and Disney Infinity. Likewise with Carlos Alazraqui as Mike, reprising from the video game Monsters, Inc. Scream Team.
  • Similar to Jared Butler, Brian George voiced Hector Barbossa again after Kingdom Hearts II, the At World's End game, and Disney Infinity. Robin Atkin Downes also reprises his role as Davy Jones from the At World's End game.
  • Although J.P. Manoux as Randall is The Other Darrin to Steve Buscemi, he's also reprising the role from the Licensed Game adaptation for Monsters Inc. from way back in 2001. Bret Parker also reprises her role from the original movie as the mother from the trailer Randall's door leads to.
  • Chris Edgerly, Doug Erholtz, and Mae Witman reprise their roles of Cid, Leon, and Yuffie in the Re𝄌Mind DLC from Kingdom Hearts II.
  • Though it counts as The Other Darrin, Minoru Inaba reprises Buzz Lightyear from Buzz Lightyearof Star Command and Kinect: Disneyland Adventures.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: After the May 2018 Premiere Event, where certain personalities and media outlets were allowed to demo the game, attendees were allowed to publish their gameplay footage without cutscenes to avoid leaking spoilers. However, GameSpot mistakenly uploaded an uncut recording of their demo, cutscenes and all, to YouTube. This video is notable for having a high-quality line-in recording of the audio from the console itself as opposed to from the camera pointed at the monitor. The video was eventually delisted as a result, but not before it had already been downloaded and reposted by others.
• Self-Adaptation: Some of the staff from Toy Story and Monsters, Inc., including John Lasseter himself, were involved in the development for the respective worlds, which included the story writing and character design for Sora, Donald and Goofy's appearance.
• Sequel in Another Medium: While most of the Disney worlds in the series are alternate depictions of the source material and the stories told in them are usually Broad Strokes retellings of the movies with the protagonists and the Heartless inserted, Word of God confirms that the Toy Box world was written collaboratively with Pixar to be a canonical Toy Story 2.5, set between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 in the continuity of the original films. While not explicitly stated, it can also be inferred that the same applies to the Monstropolis world, whose story similarly functions as a sequel to Monsters, Inc..
  • The San Fransokyo world is also written as a sequel to Big Hero 6, though seemingly contradictory to other Sequel in Another Medium example Big Hero 6: The Series, as it ends with Baymax’s original body being recovered and joining the team alongside the current Baymax.
• Shrug of God:
  • Square Enix has been somewhat evasive on the issue of whether elements from the Disney acquisitions Star Wars or the Marvel Cinematic Universe are going to appear in the game, though they have said that the two are certainly not off-limits. At the very least, Disney's take on Big Hero 6 (which is not part of the MCU, but rather the Disney Animated Canon) will be a part of the game. It would later be announced in June 2018 that there would be no content from either franchises due to neither being Disney-original properties as well as problems with synchronizing with all the writers.
  • Whenever asked about the release date or progress, the response has usually been something along the lines of "it's coming" with no timeframe given. When a rumor starts, however, Square quickly shoots it down, as was the case in early January 2015 when Bill Farmer's tweet promising the game's release later in the year began catching fire on the Internet. It was announced in June 2015 that a release window had been internally decided upon, which was publicly revealed at D23 2017 to be 2018.
• Spoiled by the Cast List: The ending credits show that the Foretellers sans Ava are present in the game through their voice actors. The cutscene they appear in can only be viewed after seeing the credits.
• Teasing Creator:
  • Utada Hikaru has teased that they might leak the full theme song if Square Enix didn't hurry up and release the game, although the official release of the full album took that one from them.
  • As the game neared release, Nomura came out and said "the final world is something I've wanted to do since the first game", leading to much speculation about what he could possibly mean given that the footage shown of the presumed final world, the Keyblade Graveyard, held no solid clues. Once the game was released, it became clear he didn't mean "the final world", he meant the Final World, an actual location bearing this exact name. Chances are Nomura knew nobody would get it when he said it and he was having some good-natured fun at fans' expense.
  • In summer 2019, Dylan Sprouse posted a meme mashing up the series and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Sprouse likely posted this as a cheeky hint to players that he had been cast as Yozora, since that would've been around the time he would've recorded for the DLC's January 2020 release.
  • After the DLC’s ending, a fan asked Robin Atkin Downes if Luxord was Yozora’s limo driver. Downes responded with a cryptic “it sounds like me”.
• What Could Have Been:
  • According to Ultimania, models for Leon, Cinderella's Fairy Godmother, and other Final Fantasy characters were partially made but then scrapped. Leon was dropped because there were already so many characters that the Final Fantasy cast on top of that would be too much, but the reason the Fairy Godmother didn't show up wasn't given. All of them were brought back for the Re𝄌Mind DLC.
  • Knowing that some players would feel Ending Fatigue from the Boss Rush of the Thirteen Seekers of Darkness, Nomura considered relegating some of the confrontations with them to cutscenes, but felt that other players would be upset about their favorite antagonist getting shafted, so he bit the bullet and made sure every Seeker would be actually fought.
  • The development team wanted to reuse the Command Deck system for III's combat, but Nomura decided to go back to using II's combat as a base.
  • The Thirteen Seekers of Darkness originally had ranks just like the original Organization, but Nomura figured it would likely be too confusing to have veteran members have new ranks (for example, Xemnas formerly being 1 and now being 3). He changed his mind by the time the DLC was made, as the Superbosses of the Seekers in the Limit Cut all have the ranks they were originally slated to have.
  • It was reported early on that there was an interest in having Marvel and Star Wars properties in this game, but issues with getting approval^note The official reason was that, since Disney did not create either property and acquired them instead, meaning that they would have needed to obtain Marvel Entertainment and Lucasfilm's permission as well. Issues with storytelling was also cited led to neither series appearing in the game.
  • Roxas's voice files suggest that in Re𝄌Mind, he was going to have more than just Waterga as a magic spell. His voice clips of him casting Fire magic were ultimately used in Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory.
  • As the Thirteen Seekers of Darkness were selected for the data battles of the DLC, Nomura grew conflicted over keeping Xion as one of them and considered cutting her, but hesitated too late as she was already in development.
  • Nomura wanted to include Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in the game, but had to scrap his idea because Disney told him that it would be "too difficult" to use him.
  • If analysis of the official chess set is anything to go by, Dilan/Xaldin was at one point intended to be one of the Seekers of Darkness. Dream Drop Distance seemed to lean towards him rejoining Xehanort as well, as during the scene where Ansem's apprentices woke up, Dilan was described as still being unstable, along with Even (who does appear to join Organization XIII, but turned out to be a reserve member and infiltrator). In the game proper, however, he has no spoken lines and only serves as a guard at Radiant Garden.
  • Accoring to Sora's Japanese voice actor, an alternate version of Sora and Kairi's scene on Destiny Islands had been recorded where Kairi didn't offer Sora the paopu fruit.
  • At the series’s 20th anniversary event, Nomura revealed that Roxas and Xion originally weren’t going to come back, but due to the fandom’s love for them, he decided they had no choice but to bring them back. This is presumably true for Namine as well, although that remains unconfirmed.
• Word of God:
  • Nomura has stated that the vastly more difficult fights against the Data Real Organization XIII in Re𝄌Mind are how they were actually fought in canon during the game's final act. The toned-down movesets they had during the Boss Rush are more for the player's convenience; Sora and co. still fought them at full power even if the game didn't show it.
  • Nomura attempted to debunk the theory of the Shibuya (later revealed to be part of Quadratum) that Sora ends up in during the Secret Ending being the same Shibuya from (the Kingdom Hearts counterpart of) The World Ends with You due to the shot of the Shibuya 104 building by claiming that Quadratum-Shibuya is written as "シブヤ" (in katakana) rather than the TWEWY Shibuya, which is written as "渋谷区" like in real life.

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