Nomura posted this on shota Xehanort :
Translated by Dualshockers:
Tetsuya Nomura: “The Dark Seeker arc, which featured the battle against Xehanort, ended with
Kingdom Hearts III right? So it’ll be a bit weird to say this game is part of this saga. Especially because it’s not about the battle against Xehanort but Xehanort’s own fight.
I know some might say that’s a bit too complicated… and yeah it probably is, a little. The truth is, I had this story concept in mind for years, but it just wouldn’t fit with the concepts the rest of the development team wanted, and I was about to give up on it. But then the
Union Cross team said they wanted to make a game with a new protagonist, and a lot of the developers were unexpectedly Xehanort fans, so thanks to them we finally made this game.
Plus, the browser game
Kingdom Hearts Union Cross, which is part of the Cross Series and has going on for 7 years now, depicts past events without Sora. So we decided to make this game part of the
Cross Series too.”