{"id":78625,"date":"2026-08-22T17:06:58","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T09:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=78625"},"modified":"2026-08-22T17:06:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T09:06:58","slug":"coco-opens-kingdom-hearts-4-to-these-potential-disney-worlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=78625","title":{"rendered":"Coco Opens Kingdom Hearts 4 To These Potential Disney Worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the middle of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Lea&#8211;well before he becomes fan-favorite character Axel&#8211;makes a brief appearance, leaving a big impression on protagonist Ventus with his rather boisterous behavior. At the end of this scene, Lea makes a declaration that outlines his outlook in life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I want everybody I meet to remember me. Inside people&#8217;s memories, I can live forever.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In what might seem like a coincidence at first, the D23 trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4 begins with a remarkably similar moment. Recreating a scene from Coco, the character H\u00e9ctor loses a friend to \u201cthe Final Death,\u201d which occurs to anyone in the Land of the Dead once they are forgotten in the living world. The scene is essential to the film\u2019s world-building and more than fitting with the larger Kingdom Hearts franchise, which heavily emphasizes memory as a central component of the heart.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019re still at least a year away from the release of Kingdom Hearts 4, but based on what we know about the game and its story, the world of Coco already seems like a perfect thematic fit for the game and the series as a whole. Kingdom Hearts creator Tetsuya Nomura said as much, stating that he considers how Disney worlds \u201csynergize with the overall main story progression with Sora.\u201d And through the reveal of Coco, we might have a better sense of what other Disney worlds are to come.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another reason why the Land of the Dead makes perfect sense for Kingdom Hearts 4 is Sora\u2019s \u2026 \u201csituation,\u201d let\u2019s call it. After fading away at the end of Kingdom Hearts 3, presumably due to his abuse of the Power of Waking, the game\u2019s secret ending and subsequent KH4 trailers show that Sora is now in Quadratum, a world that appears to be a simulacrum of our own real world. But as Strelitzia explains to Sora in KH4\u2019s debut trailer, Quadratum is \u201csimilar to an afterworld.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s also known that Donald Duck and Goofy are trying to track Sora down, searching in the Underworld as depicted in Hercules, only to be informed by Hades that our favorite keyblade wielder isn\u2019t there. Judging from the extended D23 trailer, their search eventually takes them to the Land of the Dead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s evident that Sora has \u201cmoved on\u201d in some fashion, but he isn\u2019t necessarily dead. The inhabitants of Quadratum appear to be very much alive, and Sora\u2019s Land of the Dead look includes skeleton paint, similar to what the still-living Coco protagonist Miguel dons in that world. With how focused our early looks at Kingdom Hearts 4 are on the living, dead, and in between, I\u2019m left thinking that other Disney worlds featured in the game could continue that narrative throughline.<\/p>\n<figure data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;core&quot;: { &quot;image&quot;: { &quot;initialized&quot;: true } } }\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-ref-id=\"1858022\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.core.image.showLightbox\" style=\"cursor: zoom-in\" height=\"576\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/MV5BNTM1OWExMmYtZWFhNS00YWU1LTkxMTQtMTAzZDgyNzFmYTVmXkEyXkFqcGdeQWpnYW1i._V1__95138e.jpg?w=636\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1858022\" \/><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A strong candidate for a Disney world would be another Pixar gem: 2020\u2019s Soul. While Coco interprets Mexican folklore, Soul presents an original concept on, well, <em>souls<\/em>&#8211;specifically, how they gain their personality traits and passions, and what happens to a soul after death. The film follows a jazz musician named Joe Gardner, who, after accidentally falling down a manhole, becomes a disembodied soul. Determined to avoid the \u201cGreat Beyond,\u201d the film\u2019s version of an afterlife, he ends up in the \u201cGreat Before,\u201d where nascent souls prepare for life in the living world. With Sora being in a strange status between life and death, the scenario of Soul seems like the perfect adventure for him to get tangled in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, Kingdom Hearts fans seem convinced that KH4 will finally include a Star Wars world, based on what appear to be walker footprints in a forest world that resembles Endor from Return of the Jedi. One can definitely find overlaps between the metaphysical concepts from Kingdom Hearts and the Force from Star Wars, which connects all living beings. And when a being dies, they become one with the Force&#8211;with certain individuals gaining new life as a Force ghost after death. It\u2019d be fun to see Sora swinging a lightsaber Keyblade around, but him learning about the nature of the Force and potentially communing with those who have moved on could prove to be narrative gold for Kingdom Hearts.<\/p>\n<figure data-wp-interactive=\"core\/image\" data-wp-context=\"{ &quot;core&quot;: { &quot;image&quot;: { &quot;initialized&quot;: true } } }\" class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-ref-id=\"1858023\" data-wp-on--click=\"actions.core.image.showLightbox\" style=\"cursor: zoom-in\" height=\"576\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/black-panter.png?w=636\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1858023\" \/><\/figure>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And while it might be fun to see Spider-Man or the Avengers join the fray, I wonder if Black Panther would actually be the best Marvel representation, if Kingdom Hearts 4 were to include any. Black Panther is a standout property after the 2018 film became a phenomenon, and better yet, using the MCU movie as a Disney world gives Kingdom Hearts access to the Ancestral Plane. It\u2019s an astral dimension that acts as the afterlife for Wakandans&#8211;a space that the Black Panther, after consuming the Heart-Shaped Herb&#8211;can enter to speak with their ancestors. It would probably be cultural taboo for Sora to enter that plane, but the movie\u2019s themes of connecting with departed family members would still make for good story fodder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019ll have to wait until late 2027 to see if any of these Disney worlds made the cut, and how the worlds included fit with Kingdom Hearts 4\u2019s grand narrative. For now, remember our predictions, and get them memorized.<\/p>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamespot.com\/articles\/coco-opens-kingdom-hearts-4-to-these-potential-disney-worlds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the middle of Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Lea&#8211;well before he becomes fan-favorite character Axel&#8211;makes a brief appearance, leaving a big impression on protagonist&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[20553,2710,14186,11777,3633,6926,3117],"class_list":["post-78625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-gadgets-reviews","tag-coco","tag-disney","tag-hearts","tag-kingdom","tag-opens","tag-potential","tag-worlds","wpcat-32-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}