It’s going to be a while before Kingdom Hearts III is completed, and a new video gave us a sneak peek. KHIII designer Tetsuya Nomura also recently provided more details about the game’s visual flair, expressing his desire for the game to look oh so Disney.
As previously stated, Kingdom Hearts 3 will have a more brush-like visual style as opposed to a more photo realistic look. Nomura spoke about this visual style in an interview with Weekly Famitsu.
“We don’t have an official name for it, but we have something called the ‘Kingdom Shader.’ We showed it in the E3 trailer, but it’s our attempt to ‘Express Disney’s 2D brushwork in 3D.’ When deciding on the graphical direction for Kingdom Hearts III, we talked with [Square Enix’s Takeshi] Nozue and the rest of Square Enix’s visual development department, Visual Works, and had them prepare several different styles. Some were in a ‘brushwork-like style’ and they were developed into what you saw at E3. We have a development base where Visual Works makes a pre-rendered movie that we convert into a real-time render.”
Going further, Nomura explained,
“Ever since the first game, we’ve strived for a Disney-like brush quality in the graphic gradations. At the time, the [PlayStation 2] didn’t have the processing power to allow us to freely adjust the lighting, so we had to make the brush-like visuals as textures. But the new hardware has become much more capable, so there is no ‘no using lights’ option. You can’t get a real feeling of evolution by just making the standard graphics into HD, and I thought that simply recreating the pre-rendered movies from Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II isn’t the direction we should be going for the series in the next generations, so the ‘Kingdom Shader’ was born.”
As for what fans can expect in Kingdom Hearts III in terms of new worlds and characters, Nomura was much less open, stating only that, “We’ve already chosen some worlds and have begun development, but I can’t specifically say ‘this world’ or ‘this character will appear’ at this point in time. We will offer more information as time goes on, but comparatively, there are more new worlds and many Disney works that haven’t shown up yet will make an appearance.”
Hopefully, “as time goes on” will be relatively soon instead of having unbearably long breaks in new info and end up with people asking what the Hell is going on rather than be excited… *cough!*Versus*cough!*.
【PS4クリエイターインタビュー】 『キングダムハーツIII』ディレクター野村哲也氏が目指す”いちばん高い山” [ファミ通.com]
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5 responses to “Tetsuya Nomura Explains The Look Of Kingdom Hearts III”
To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t all that impressed with the in-game video that was posted on Kotaku the other day. It didn’t look that much different to any other KH game. But then again, when do YouTube videos do anything justice? After reading this though, I’m looking forward to really checking out the difference in graphics and style when KHIII is finally released.
As for worlds and characters, currently I have no preference over what to include. They’ve pretty much already included my favorite movies and characters in previous games, though I guess it would be nice to return to some of them, have some more screen time with favorite characters, and have more areas to explore in each world rather than just a small area. KHII introduced a few new areas of previously visited worlds, such as the Underworld on the world based on Hercules (easily my favorite part of KHII), which was great. I’m hoping worlds will be even bigger now, with even more areas to explore. For example, players could explore both under the sea and on land in the world based on The Little Mermaid (been a while since I’ve played any KH games, so I can’t remember the names of the worlds). It would be great to be able to explore, say King Trident’s castle and Prince Eric’s castle, as well as the surrounding areas/towns and see the difference between the two and those who live there. It would make the worlds feel more realistic and full of life.
After Kingdom Hearts 2 I never want to go to Atlantica again myself
Clearly this man doesn’t enjoy having any finny fun.
Oh yeah, that as a musical thingo, wasn’t it? I must have blocked that out or something. But obviously if it’s revisited there would be a lot less singing and junk, I hope.
I think Kingdom Hearts could do with not returning to a lot of worlds. Traverse Town has appeared as playable in 4 of the 7 KH games (not counting χ[Chi] or Mobile), and it only really differed in one of them. Twilight Town is a similar offender, appearing in 3 of 7 games, and already looking to appear in KH3. Then you’ve got Disney world repeat offenders like Agrabah and Atlantica. As someone who’s played every KH game so far, playing through the same levels that I know back to front just doesn’t appeal to me. A new hub world would make a world of difference, for one.