First up, the plot will continue on from Dream Drop Distance; "We're proceeding along with which worlds we'll be selecting for the game," he said. "It's the final episode in the 'Dark Seeker' saga that began with the original Kingdom Hearts, and it'll depict the final battle with Xehanort."
Responding to queries regarding the slightly altered visual style seen in the trailer, Nomura explained that the team had spent a long time trying to decide how best to make use of the next-gen consoles' graphical capabilities.
"Should we go for a more realistic look like in recent projects, or try something else? Along the way, we remembered that these Kingdom Hearts characters were originally paintbrush art from Disney productions, a texture that was one of our original aims, and that it was time to return to that. So [chief creative director Takeshi] Nozue went through a series of tests, and the results are the visuals that we refer to in the team as the Kingdom Shader. It may look like a pretty drastic change, but I see it as a rich evolution of everything we've shown you up to now."
In terms of gameplay, Nomura revealed, "The action's pretty frantic. The really bold action we've always had is getting even crazier. Kingdom Hearts III has three-person parties, but NPCs and other characters join the fight in each individual world, and the resulting action is really flashy and exciting. The enemy AI is a lot more intricate, too, and I think the gameplay will reflect that new dynamic balance. For example, there's a foe that's shaped like a vehicle, and Sora may jump on it and fly around; that's already implemented."
So when can we expect to see the game? Well, while he admitted that Kingdom Hearts 3 "is still pretty early in development," we should be getting another look at it soon, possibly at the Tokyo Game Show or definitely at the D23 Expo Japan event in October. It seems achingly far away, but considering we've already waited around seven years since the last numbered title, a couple more months can't hurt.
