Multiplayer in Kingdom Hearts has been a dream of many players, looking to take the AI driven companion mechanics and replace it with real-live humans to help journey through a given area or fight a boss together. Of course, this is a dream that came true back in 2009 when Square Enix released spin-off title Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for the DS with local and online multiplayer capabilities.
Unfortunately, it seems like even the developer has resigned this era of Kingdom Hearts to be forgotten, even limiting Days to a set of viewable cutscenes in the HD collections. However, there is still an opportunity for players to get a taste of some multiplayer in this series, even if it might be diverging from the core combat mechanics that fans often flock to.
The key here, is through the heavily improved Gummi Missions in Kingdom Hearts 3 and the new open spaces and gummi bosses that leans even more into older arcade classics than before. Not only do the increased customization options imply some sort of social interactions between players to show off their creations, but the arcade style of fighting has a long history of multiplayer options. Older Gummi Missions have been compared with Panzer Dragoon, as a similar rail-shooter with forward fire mechanics, but by the latest title, it has more in common with classics like Galaga and G-Darius from a new perspective.
Classic Arcade Multiplayer
Bullet-Hell as a genre in gaming is nothing new, with many of the most prominent titles under this umbrella becoming beloved classics during the era of arcades. As a result, the best way to get as many players dropping quarters into these cabinets meant allowing two or more players to have a ship on screen at a time, working together to fight off enemy fleets. The popularity of these titles continue with bullet-hells like ITTA still having physical releases in 2021, only no longer on arcade cabinets, but instead on consoles like the Switch.
This has led directly into titles like Panzer Dragoon and Kingdom Hearts' Gummi Missions taking the classic bullet-hell model and placing the camera behind the player, instead of above. The result can be even more chaotic, with animations acting as the telegraph for enemy attacks, instead of spawning the bullets on the opposite side of the screen. However, even more arcade classics, like House of the Dead and Time Crisis have proven that this type of game is still well suited for multiplayer, especially as players compete for points.
Social Sharing Functions
In addition to the game mode making sense for multiplayer, Kingdom Hearts 3's Gummi Ship customization has opened up for tons of new options for players to create thousands of ship designs. It winds up going far beyond anything close to what's been seen in previous games, even the improved version of the system found in Kingdom Hearts 2. All of this really lends itself to a much more modern concept in the age of online gaming, where players can upload and share their designs and creations for others to see, or even use for themselves.
This type of mechanic has been used in all sorts of recent games, including Animal Crossing: New Horizons with player created content that gets spread across the internet for what is ultimately a superficial form multiplayer. However, it's enough that players absolutely love sharing their islands, songs, and clothing designs online, with entire forums and subreddits dedicated specifically to this sharing feature. So, the vast customization in Kingdom Hearts 3's Gummi Ship should be exactly the kind of situation where creating new ships and designs to pass around is the backbone of the system's longevity.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Multiplayer
Well, the elephant in the room of "introducing" multiplayer to Kingdom Hearts is obviously that the series has had multiplayer before, and even has a couple different forms of online and local play have led to the success of Melody of Memory. Then there is the mobile title, now called Union X (Cross), which also has a somewhat more passive amount of multiplayer, with players able to each contribute to the group efforts in raids or have "PvP" battles against each other. All of this is a tip-toe into the online pool with a series that has long been left offline, with the single-player narrative driving each game in the past.
To some players, however, it's disappointing to see that online component is limited to musical spin-offs or an autoplay, gatcha title with fairly superficial multiplayer. This is especially strange considering how well the multiplayer mode worked with the mission based title that was Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, where adding another player to a previously completed mission wasn't an intrusion on the narrative. The fact is that Square Enix had gotten the mechanic so right, but put it on a game that failed to deliver for the company, and so it looks like the next Kingdom Hearts title isn't going to take the same risk.
Expanding From Spacefaring Multiplayer
This is where taking the series into another spin-off might be helpful, by releasing a standalone title that centers around the new Gummi Missions with expanded combat, exploration, and customization. Then take this game and make it multiplayer, to allow players to share their creations, tackle challenges together, and possibly even designing levels like Super Mario Maker. The result can be a test for how perceptive players are to getting more multiplayer options with some of the core mechanics of Kingdom Hearts, starting with an area that has already been vastly improved upon.
From there, after gauging how much fans enjoy taking Kingdom Hearts online, Square Enix can then begin the decision about what to do with bringing the more general combat to a multiplayer format. It'll naturally be more involved that simply giving a player a second controller and having two Sora's running around in Kingdom Hearts 4. However, taking some larger leaps into integrating an online component into the future of the series could be a determining factor that improves the overall longevity of Kingdom Hearts and the coming sequels.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is available now for PS4 and Xbox One.