Tetsuya Nomura Contemplates Retirement And Concluding Kingdom Hearts

"I have to decide whether to retire first or finish the series first"

by · Nintendo Life
Image: Square Enix

Kingdom Hearts co-creator Tetsuya Nomura has recently acknowledged the possibility of retirement alongside whether or not to bring the action-RPG franchise's story to a conclusion.

This comes via an interview from YoungJump (thanks, VGC), during which he was asked about future plans for Kingdom Hearts. Nomura (53) responded by stating that he only has " a few years left" until he potentially retires, and will need to decide whether he brings Kingdom Hearts to a conclusion before this happens.

“I only have a few years left until I retire, I have to decide whether to retire first or finish the series first. However, I’m making Kingdom Hearts IV now with the intention of it being a story that I will complete.”

We can only guess at what Nomura is implying with the comment regarding Kingdom Hearts IV, but our assumption is that he simply means that it will serve the overarching Kingdom Hearts narrative and lead to a hypothetical ending.

Nomura has served as director on every Kingdom Hearts entry since the franchise's inception in 2002. It would seem somewhat odd, then, for the series to continue without his involvement. However, it's possible that Nomura may continue working on Kingdom hearts well beyond his retirement age if he feels that there is a potential story worth telling.

For now, Kingdom Hearts IV is not officially planned for release on Nintendo platforms, but we'd be very surprised if it didn't show up on the upcoming 'Switch 2'. A previous reveal from the now-ousted leaker known as 'Midori' stated that the game "might" show up on Nintendo's next major hardware.

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What do you make of Nomura's comments on his upcoming retirement? Leave a comment with your thoughts down below.

[source youngjump.jp, via videogameschronicle.com]

About Ollie Reynolds

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Comments 40

What premise of KH4 before he retired?

Kinda sad this series could had ended with a bang, instead it ends with a whimper. Other than the first game, I hardly had any enjoyment with the rest. The fact that it ends with cloud ports on Nintendo means more young fans of the franchise will only know it for being terrible than awesome.

It concluded with the first entry. A nice story and what if of two franchises. Everything else is just a mess of convoluted plots.

Yes please.
The series can only do so much without radically reinventing it to be something it's not.

Can articles please stop citing Midori? They no longer have a shred of credibility.

Whatever you decide to do Nomura-San, I wish you the best and I am very much looking forward to Kingdom Hearts IV. I am sure it will be alot of fun, like the rest of the series. What has been shown so far looks incredible.

However Tetsuya Nomura decides to act, I have appreciated his influence on games, especially Kingdom Hearts, for nearly all of my gaming life. His presence will be missed, and Kingdom Hearts will forever remain a wonderful touchstone in the gaming zeitgeist. Kingdom Hearts 2 was especially impactful for me, and I loved dearly every single handheld entry. Thank you for everything you've done!

However you end it, Nomura-San, make it simple and clean.

Wish Nomura-san the best regardless, but I'd say it makes more sense to finish the series first if possible (and fingers crossed it will eventually be fully playable on a Nintendo system - hopefully Switch's successor - without cloud versions)!

I sincerely hope he has a nice retirement soon — he’s certainly earned it — but let’s be honest, the man is categorically incapable of “finishing” any of his projects.

Retire! You’ve made enough of mess with the convoluted story. Let someone else take over and have a go at giving this series a chance of a wonderful send off.

The dude deserves his retirement. Love the KH series and looking forward to whatever whacky conclusion he brings.

Do it! Do it before it gets the DEIsney treatment

I think it's time for a full REBOOT of KH. The story sucks.

I'd say KH IV needs to end the series and Nomura can get a well deserved retirement. It's an amazing series and we're all grateful for his work, but after BBS the story got too convoluted, so it needs to end. For his own sake and our sanity XD

Someone else should take the helm of the series and reboot it

really wish he would've retired before he RUINED FINAL FANTASY VII

@Pipulitoch gamergate losers can't let it go

hopefully switch 2 will get a native port of these games...

Hope they wrap up the Xigbar thing the ending of 3 (before DLC) set up.
———————
@MJF Gamergate was about corruption in games journalism.

I think he better finish the series. KH fans are hardcore. They would be at his house with keyblades (foam or plastic cosplay ones of course).

Kingdom Hearts had a lot of creative energy and ideas, but the execution and storytelling was a mess and just got worse as the series progressed. The nobody/heartless dynamic made absolutely no sense. Also at the end of the series, pretty much everyone could wield a Keyblade making the legendary gimmick as common as a Zubat in a cave. Despite all the convolutions and shortcomings, the series still had amazing music and created generations of fans.

Hot take - I'd love to see a story of equal crossover ambition but with Nintendo IPs. The closest we got was Subspace Emissary in Smash Brawl which was actually written by some of the people who made Kingdom Hearts. Maybe if Ultimate is ported to Switch 2, it can get a brand new crossover story mode with actual cutscenes and a plot?

This is a rare example of a series I would like to see taken away from it's originally creator so I hope it continues without him.

@Axecon
Despite the the narrative mess of the KH series and it's often fanfic vibes I dream of this Nintendo crossover too! I loved subspace emissary and every smash bros since has slightly disappointed me for lacking something of its ilk.

To expand on your hot take I think that this crossover should be a Kid Icarus Uprising semi sequel for several reasons:
1)The main cast of that game break the 4th wall multiple times to refer to other Nintendo franchises.
2) This is expanded enormously in Smash Bros itself with the whole Palutena's guidance mechanic.
3) Sakurai is one of the only people I trust to pull this off.
4) The machinations of gods disrupting mortal realms just fits with this concept.

He should have quitted/been fired aeons ago. He's been gangrening Square for too long now, along his 'buddy' Nojima. No respect for him or any of 'his' games

I love his crazy stories. I enjoy the Kingdom Hearts series. It is what it is…whatever that is.
I just want Sora and Kairi to get their happy ending finally. Then he can retire. 😉

@Tobiaku yeah and they all moved onto dei like a bunch of bots

@MJF While DEI can be a problem, not all people who are pro gamegate moved on (neither are all of them losers) for example Billy who ran Oneangrygamer sold his site back in 2020 and as far as I know has not done anything gaming related online.

@Tobiaku lol - you found a guy

@MJF I used to read OAG back when Billy ran that site. Was the best source for news about censorship of niche games.He is also the most well-known online personality I know about who quit, so best example I could use. My point was not all moved on. Some just quit.
And I didn’t like you calling someone gamergate losers, as Gamergate is not something I associate with losers.

Have a good evening

gamergate was, in fact, a bunch of losers

Kingdom Hearts took about twelve games to finish one 'saga'. At this point he's better off just leaving it as is rather than attempting to wrap it up in the space of a few years.

Nomura should have retired a long time ago.

@AJWolfTill I love the concept! However I don't think we'll ever get a sequel to Kid Icarus Uprising for a few reasons:
1. Trying to get Sakurai back with the project is a tall order. Even then, there is no active development team working on or with the IP.
2. The voice actors for Uprising are part of a voice actors union. Nintendo for some reason tries to stay away from working with actors from a union. The last time these actors were contracted to work with Nintendo was 2018 for Smash Ultimate (they didn't even do voice work for the DLC).
3. It's been over 12 years now. Clearly Kid Icarus is not high on Nintendo's priority. They haven't even released Kid Icarus 2 on Switch Online. Although that could also mean that a title might be primed for a Switch 2 launch window title.

The series needs more love. I'd love to see it adapt a dungeon-style formula similar to Zelda but honestly even just a small spinoff would be nice.

It might be a good thing, a new director could stop the madness of spin-off titles that are required to follow the story, hehe.

Honestly I'm entirely an advocate of just rebooting Kingdom Hearts. The series kind of stopped being worth caring about after 2 and the plot was really not great to begin with and just rapidly got worse so I don't have a lot of investment in seeing the current dangling plot threads cleared up but there is something there in the concept that it'd be nice to see someone who's a more coherent writer take a crack at.

I will never understand how people can’t keep up with the story 🙄. It’s not that difficult to understand and follow.

Maybe they will actually put the series on switch before he retires. Actually running on the switch not a cloud game which only maybe 1% of consumers can actually play.

Good he's terrible writer between his awful work with KH3 and final fantasy 15 this made me have zero interest for any upcoming KH games.

@Pipulitoch
Imagine being this scared of minorities

I literally wouldn’t mind if four ended the story, I mean if it goes forward it’s just going to be more years of spin-offs that are canon with maybe another Mobile game tie in till five happens. I love kingdom hearts, love love it but the story is all over the place and it could have ended with a few games ago if done right.

KH should've ended at the first game.

As for Nomura, he's a sub-par storyteller and character designer, but a fantastic artist and his takes on others' designs is stellar (e.g., his Dissidia art based on Amano art).

Best news, at last, kingdom hearts will end. I never hated a series so much.

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