Kingdom Hearts made a big splash yesterday, dropping a trailer for Kingdom Hearts 3 Re:Mind shortly before both The Game Awards and an upcoming State of Play by PlayStation. Either could have been a significant outlet to drop some new Kingdom Hearts 3 information, but it seems as though Square-Enix has decided intentionally or otherwise to show its hand a little early.
Along with the trailer came a ton of new info and answers to some fairly significant questions among fans looking to continue their journey into Kingdom Hearts 3. The biggest answer of course being Re:Mind's release dates, but with everything the trailer revealed, it still left a few questions unfulfilled.
There was a ton previously revealed for Re:Mind, and in going through the trailer frame-by-frame in the coming weeks, there will surely be more concrete evidence to work with. However, now is the perfect time to begin wondering what might be hiding under the surface, and what surprises Kingdom Hearts has ready for players that hasn't already been confirmed. One place to start, is where in the timeline does this DLC actually take place?
Timeline
It's easy to assume that Re:Mind takes place after the main events of Kingdom Hearts 3, following Sora during his disappearance at the end of the game, but there are some scenes and lines that complicate exactly when all of this is happening. For instance, in a sequence shown in the new trailer, Sora is fighting against an army of Dark Aquas, with a line playing over the scene stating, "So...this is the fear and despair that Aqua feels." This moment also seems to be happening during the fight against Terranort and the Demon Tide from the final act of the game.
This isn't the only moment where the player is swept into previous fights in the series, with the trailer showing a few different perspectives on previous encounters. Another line from the first trailer might have the answer though, as well as a sequence that occurs during the main events of Kingdom Hearts 3.
"The heart you have now already existed during that time. It had already gone back into the past. Nothing can change that fact."
There is something ominous about that line that appears across the screen and is spoken by Chirathy in the beginning of the first trailer. It also connects back to when Sora traveled into the past to call Terra's Lingering Will to aid in the fight against Terranort. With this information, its likely that where exactly Re:Mind fits in the timeline is everywhere, as Sora has to travel though time to connect himself and Kairi back to the world and reconnect with old characters, even some from Final Fantasy who hadn't made it into the base game.
Playable Characters
Another amazing reveal in the recent trailer is that players will finally get to play as Kairi for the first time in the series. However, that does raise the question of how many other characters will players get to take the reigns for.
In the base game of Kingdom Hearts 3, players took control of Riku and Aqua at different points throughout the plot, pulling the camera away from behind Sora's back and placing players into another character's shoes. This isn't the first time players have been able to control other characters in the series though, with Riku being playable in Chain of Memories and Dream Drop Distance before, and almost every other character in the series being usable in 358/2 Days, to a lesser degree. However, another scene in the new trailer showcases a few more playable characters all fighting together.
One encounter seems to give players control of Riku in an extended battle against the goat headed Xehanort Clones from the final boss encounter in Kingdom Hearts 3. Although, other major characters are shown, and the camera's focus during combat seems to shift around during some cinematic action sequences that happen in the middle of the fight. While there isn't much information available about this encounter, it is possible that the other characters present, including Roxas, Ventus, Aqua, and Xion, may all be playable at this point as well.
Who is Yozora?
The character of Yozora was introduced in what seemed like a throwaway joke in the second world players travel to in Kingdom Hearts 3, Toy Box. He first appears in an over-the-top trailer for a game called Verum Rex, with heavy allusions to Final Fantasy 15, a game that Kingdom Hearts director Tetsua Nomura famously worked on for nearly a decade before being taken off the project to focus on Kingdom Hearts.
However, while Yozora seemed to be nothing more than a running joke throughout the Toy Box level, players were treated with an interesting sight as he appeared in the secret ending of Kingdom Hearts 3 along with a confused Sora and Riku, in the Tokyo from The World Ends with You. And once again, Yozora has been spotted, infiltrating the story of Kingdom Hearts 3, as he appears at the end of the latest Re:Mind trailer. He only shows up for a few seconds, but the character does speak a few lines before the trailer cuts to the title screen.
"I've been having these weird thoughts lately. Like, is any of this for real, or not?"
Sora and Yozora say this line together, a cryptic callback to the very first line ever spoken in the Kingdom Hearts series. It seems as though Sora finds the mysterious figure while searching through the Final World, a place where hearts go just before they die. The way that they walk towards each other, with those words overlaying the moment seems to suggest that Yozora is somehow one and the same with Sora. It's as if Yozora is some kind of alternate dimension Sora, or Sora clone.
What's in the Box?
The last big question the trailers raise is about the mysterious black box, that fans of the Kingdom Hearts Union X recognized as the box that the Master of Masters passed on to Luxu. Some answers were given at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3, such as the fate of Luxu, along with a few vague details about his mission. However, the black box plotline was never finished in the game, making for one of the more frustrating red herrings in Kingdom Hearts 3.
Once again, turning to the newest trailer, it looks like Xigbar and Luxord have some sort of conversation about the box, alluding that Re:Mind might touch on the subject again. However, it would be presumptuous to assume that the box is going to open at any point in the DLC. It's fairly likely that players won't see its contents until Kingdom Hearts 4 comes around, possibly in another 14 years.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is available now for PS4 and Xbox One.