New Kingdom Hearts game might have Star Wars stuff in it

At the risk of being hyperbolic, and we mean this in no way as a criticism (merely a statement of fact), Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts video game series is one of the weirdest things in existence. It’s a long-running series of fantasy role-playing games that tie together some Final Fantasy stuff with the various worlds and characters of Disney (plus Pixar, as of Kingdom Hearts III), but with its own complicated mythology grafted on top to hold the entire thing together. The main character in most games is a kid named Sora who was created for the series, but his two best friends and allies are Goofy and Donald Duck—with Donald in particular becoming more powerful than any magic-user in any Final Fantasy game at one point.

And now things might be getting even weirder, because Square Enix just announced Kingdom Hearts IV (via Kotaku), and while the announcement trailer is relatively straightforward (Sora wakes up in a fantastical world that just looks like ours rather than some Disney nonsense!), eagle-eyed fans noticed what might be the foot of an AT-ST from Star Wars in the background of a jungle scene. Here’s the trailer, followed by the image in question:

If that is the foot of an AT-ST, that would make this the first glimpse of any Star Wars stuff in Kingdom Hearts since Disney swallowed up Lucasfilm years ago. As noted by Game Informer in 2019, Square Enix has avoided putting any Star Wars stuff in Kingdom Hearts because getting approval would mean making deals with Lucasfilm instead of just Disney, not to mention the fact that, at the time, Electronic Arts had an exclusive deal with Disney to make Star Wars games—a deal that has since ended, removing one of the barriers between Kingdom Hearts and Star Wars.

We should also note, just for the sake of pointing it out, that Square Enix and Disney already have a Marvel-based relationship as well, with the former publishing the underrated Marvel’s Avengers game from a few years ago. Marvel has also been off-limits to Kingdom Hearts despite being owned by Disney, for the same reason as Star Wars, but that could easily change