Tetsuya Nomura, Square Enix's director of the Kingdom Hearts series, has been interviewed by Final Fantasy Ring and has given his thoughts on the development and direction of Kingdom Hearts 3.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is being developed by the Osaka team and Nomura addressed the issue of whether they're up to the challenge saying "The Osaka studio developed HD 1.5 ReMIX, so we cannot say that they have never worked on the current console generation. But you're right, in the case of Kingdom Hearts 3, it is actually the first time they have developed a completely new numbered episode, on next generation consoles at that.
"This is why we have made many preparations and extensive tests to date. As I feel that the preparations are complete, we were able to get to the development phase."
Nomura also spoke about how the Square Enix teams in Tokyo and Osaka are communicating during the game's development.
"In fact, the co-director and producer Tai Yasue and Rie Nishi are there. They are key memebers of the Kingdom Hearts project, so when they need to discuss a lot of different topics with me, they come to Tokyo. This is our visual method of working. But as technology is ever advancing, our new offices in Shinjuku are now equipped with a video conference system.
"Now Yasue and Nishi can send me their materials or proposals in advance, which allows me to add my comments or my drawings and show them on camera in our video conferencing. In addition, there is no time difference, so even if we are far apart, it is easy to work."
He adds that he has more of a supervisory role on Kingdom Hearts 3 than the more direct capacity he held on previous titles, "Yasue and Nishi's teams offer me lots of ideas and we discuss together to know what we will keep or not. They offer me many interesting ideas, of course.
"So it is always better to have a whole team to think, rather than myself. This is beneficial. [For] The past ten years of its existence, the Kingdom Hearts series has found its own identity even though many were initially surprised by the alliance between Square and Disney."
Kingdom Hearts 3 will be released for PS4 and Xbox One. The game does not currently have a confirmed release date.
Source: Final Fantasy Ring.
Via: KH13.
