Kingdom Hearts III’s “Re:Mind” DLC is coming to PlayStation 4 on January 23, with an Xbox One launch set for a whole month later on February 25.
This is among the many reveals that have come from the DLC’s new trailer, which was mistakenly made public before it was meant to debut, presumably in the next week or so. But along with the release date, the trailer, which has been posted on several external YouTube channels since its leak, shows “Re:Mind” is going to be a pretty meaty story expansion alongside all the new modes it’s bringing to the RPG.
Here’s the trailer via AvantViral, and it has some huge spoilers for the main game so proceed with caution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIehnOox7t0
First thing of note here is that “Re:Mind” will see the return of Final Fantasy characters, who were notably absent in Kingdom Hearts III proper. Just in the trailer we see Final Fantasy VII’s Aerith and Yuffie, as well as Final Fantasy VIII’s Leon (or Squall for the purists out there). These three have been mainstays of Kingdom Hearts since the original game, so it makes sense they’d make an appearance for the big resurgence of the other half of the Disney/Final Fantasy crossover, but it remains to be seen whether others like Cloud Strife, or the Destiny Island trio Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie will make an appearance as well.
The trailer also shows a lot of new story content, specifically featuring the remaining members of Organization XIII, and what appears to be ties to some revelations seen in the game’s post-credits scene featuring Xigbar, which hinted at the next big conflict for the Kingdom Hearts series as a whole.
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Along with all of this, it looks like the update is going to finally fill in some gaps in Kingdom Hearts III’s ending, which saw protagonist Sora disappear after having apparently saved his series-long will-they-won’t-they Kairi after she was “killed” by Xehanort. But this entire thing happened off-screen up until now, it seems. And most importantly of all, Kairi will be playable in these segments for the first time in the series. While we won’t know the specifics of how this all shakes out until then, Kairi’s role in Kingdom Hearts III was a major point of contention for fans, as she spent the entire game training to fight alongside everyone else only to be “fridged” with minimal screen time. Can “Re:Mind” undo the damage? We’ll have to wait and see, but that’s a pretty tall order to ask of a DLC coming out a year after the damage has been done.
The very last shot of the trailer is of Sora meeting Yozora, a character who debuted in the Toy Story world as a character in a video game, but also was seen in one of Kingdom Hearts III’s post-credits scenes and appears to have some kind of major role in whatever comes next.
While the trailer was leaked by mistake, several people online are speculating the trailer and all the details it brings with it will be officially unveiled at Sony’s final State of Play presentation for the year on Tuesday. Given that there’s apparently a month-long exclusivity deal here for PlayStation 4, it seems like that’s something Sony would be happy to tout out for viewers, but unless Square has another accidental announcement, we’ll have to wait and see.
