Kingdom Hearts III World Speculation/Theories

I was going to put this all in the interview where it was confirmed we'll soon be getting a release date, since I started writing this in there, but I decided to make it a whole thread all by itself. Not to be confused with the "Worlds you could like to see" Thread, this one is more of Speculation/Theories as to which worlds will be included.

For my own theory, I've only included what Disney Worlds I've theorized we'll see, but feel free to include your own posts about non-Disney worlds as well.


I needed to figure out around how many worlds have been included in Kingdom Hearts over the years, so I could get a rough number to work off of.

In Kingdom Hearts 1, there were 9 Disney Themed worlds. In KH2 there were 12/11. In BBS and 3D there were 7. For arguments sake let's say the middle ground is 11, but since this is Kingdom Hearts III, I expect there to be a couple more then usual, but for now I'll say 11.

That means that, theoretically there are going to be probably around 3 of the worlds that we've seen before, since 5/11 would be half and not really count as "nearly all worlds" like it had said in the interview I linked above.

One of them is Olympus, but the other two... well I'm already placing my bets that we're definitely getting Disney Castle/Town. As for the others, I'll say Pirates of The Caribbean, since there is a lot that can still be done with that world compared to some of the others, Land of Dragons, since there was a squeal to that movie that doesn't need to time travel in order for it to work (Like Little Mermaid II or Lion King II when many years have past, or Beauty and the Beast II where we're going back in time) Keep in mind all of the worlds after Kingdom Hearts 2 have already gotten some sort of 'Happy Ending'. How big of a change this Happy Ending makes in the world depends on the world, but I'll get back to this later.

Anyway, if 3 of the Disney Worlds are going to be returning, that means that there's going to be an estimated 8ish brand new worlds. Right now, we have Tangled confirmed, so that gives us a lot of guessing room for what could be these other 7ish.

If we're looking at most past Kingdom Hearts games, there's a certain kind of formula it seems to follow. In KH1, RE:COM and 358/2 there are 3 worlds which include Disney Princesses from either the official line up, or are included in the Princesses of Heart. That would be Wonderland, Atlantic/Beast's Castle and Agrabah. In Birth by Sleep, there are also that same 3, which are Castle of Dreams, Enchanted Dominion, and Dwarf Woodlands. In KH2, it depends how you look at it, but you have Beast's Castle, Atlantica, Land Of Dragons and Argabah (I can't figure out if Mulan was an official Disney Princess by the time the game came out or not, but some people don't count her as one anyway).

The Ratio of Disney Princess to Non Princess Disney Worlds is 3:9, 4:12 (or 3:12, again if you don't count Land of Dragons) and 3:7. Simplified that's 1:3, 1:3, and 1:2.33. If we're going with 1:3, since that came up the most, for every non-princess world in Kingdom Hearts, there are 3 Princess worlds. If we're going with that middle ground of 11 Disney Worlds, that means that the ratio is something like 3.66:7.34 which is getting into the decimals.

With that we can say that if there are 11 worlds in KH3, that means there are going to be 4 which are Official Princess Themed Worlds.

Considering what has come out recently, it isn't hard to guess what those 4 Princess worlds could very well be: Tangled is already one of them, Frozen is 99% you-bet-your-buttons definitely one of them, and since Square is working directly with Disney Animation Studios, you can probably also count Princess and the Frog in there as well, since it was one of the first movies that got Disney Animation back into the spotlight.

That's our 3, but what about the forth one? Well, like I said before, there are probably going to be 3 of the older worlds returning. We can count out Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Enchanted Dominion and Dwarf Woodlands, since Ariel has legs now, and the Beast isn't the Beast anymore, and the other movies have gotten their happy endings. These are probably the worlds in which the 'Happy Ending' effects them the most. I said before, doing the movie squeals would take some time traveling in the future, and will probably be saved for after the Xehanort Saga, since 10+ years have pasted in most of them.

I can hear your voice in the distance saying "But Calxiyn, how about Castle of Dreams? Cinderella got her happy ending too!"

Yes, she did, but did she really?

Since Kingdom Hearts has already included a Direct-To-DVD movie before, it's no stretch to say they'll do it again.

Cinderella has third movie based on a musical that premiered on The Disney Cruise Line, in which Anastasia gets her hands on the Fairy Godmother's wand, and uses it to turn back time, and change her foot to fit the slipper. Now, since our favorite Time Traveling Villain will appear in KH3, they could take the Disney Cruise Line route, and say that The Step Mother and Step Sisters basically sold their souls to Xehanort in exchange for a second chance. I could definitely see them doing this in a number of different ways, and considering how popular the Musical is on the Cruise Line, I wouldn't dismiss it just yet. There is the problem of the 3 turning into Heartless at the end of BBS, but as we know in Kingdom Hearts, no one stays dead forever.

If Cinderella 3: Twist in Time, is too much of a stretch for you though, we still have Agrabah, Land of Dragons and //sigh Wonderland.

Land of Dragons I explained above already. Agrabah has a lot of material to go off of, since there are many Direct to DVD adventures and the Aladdin TV show they *could* look at. DVD is more likely though, since they did do a Direct-To-DVD movie/world already.

If it's Wonderland I will cry. I don't have much more to say then that.

Now we kind of have an idea what 5/11 worlds will probably be. Tangled and Olympus are confirmed already, and from what I theorized above, we also have Frozen, Princess and the Frog, and then one of the Princesses Worlds returning. That Princess World is already included in those 3 Returning Worlds I estimated, so that leaves 1 returning world, since Olympus is the other one.

This is most likely to be Disney Town/Castle, Pirates of the Caribbean, Neverland. They could also put in Lilo and Stitch/Deep Space again, but that wouldn't be a returning world as much as it would be a new one, since if they were to do it would be 'Hawaii'.

This is just my theory and 'research' I've done trying to piece together what exactly we could be seeing in Kingdom Hearts 3, but I would love to hear your own thoughts and reasons behind why you think worlds there will be or not be, rather then what you want to be in the game.

 

I agree that Frozen will make a appearance due to the films popularity and I think it will most likely act as a replacement for altantica. I can also see Hawaii being added as a world as there seems to be some kind of story that surrounds stitch in the series. I also think Lion King 2 is a possibility as they did try for a while to get the first Lion King into the games and I believe that Lion King happens to be one of the developers favourite Disney movie,( not entirely sure If I heard this correctly or not).

As for some returning Disney worlds, I Personally think that it could be Tron and Halloween Town. As I think that they might try and keep some previous world with new plots . The reason I believe Tron could make an appearance again is that Sora and the others may need to go to Radiant Gardens and get some information or important data from the apprentices which Tron would of been entrusted to keep safe, but due to the events in DDD that surrounded Tron they would end up having to enter Tron worlds and help him. As for Halloween Town I think they might possibly try and use the plot from Oogies Revenge.

I'm not sure what the other worlds that include the Disney Princesses could be , but I agree that Castle of Dreams could be a possibility in order to link to the time travel theme. As for non Disney worlds I believe that it could be , Radiant Gardens, Destiny Islands, Castle Oblivion/Land of Departure and Daybreak Town

 

I would imagine they'd probably put a Big Hero 6 world in, for a Disney/non-princess role, it's possible that the film came out too recently to be included, but it would be a nice addition to the game. I'm curious to see what other worlds they go with, sounds like they already have a great plan in store for KH III

 

I totally forgot about Tron to be perfectly honest XD. You're right though, since there's so much information in Tron's computer, Sora might need to go back to figure out that stuff you mentioned, I didn't realize that at all. That makes a lot of sense.

This breaks my heart because I LOVE Atlantica but that is totally right. They wouldn't be able to do much with it until we fast forward 10 years to the plot of the Little Mermaid 2, which has Ariel's daughter etc.

I actually don't agree with this. I think that The Emperor's New Groove is so popular among older fans and people on the internet, that it has a pretty good chance to be in it. I mean, this is the game series that did include the Disney's 3 Musketeers World. Not that I think that was bad or anything, but I think that since that got in there, especially with not a lot of attention to it by Disney Fans or Disney Company, I don't think that we should discount Emperor just yet. I can't help but try to picture who exactly came into Nomura's office with that idea though, it just seems so out of place.

I don't actually think Daybreak Town is going to be featured in this one. I think we'll see it in passing, but I don't think we'll actually get to visit it. It might be in a cut scene or something else, but there isn't really much for us to do there. That being said, I haven't played Chi, so I might be totally wrong.

Keyblade Graveyard is an interesting one because I have some mixed feelings about it. I don't actually think we'll be seeing it. As we saw in Kingdom Hearts 3D, Xehanort said that Sora and 'another' Guardian of Light was now his, making Mickey two Guardians short. Even though we have Sora back now, that means we're still missing one. As much as I want it to be Kairi who turns into badass evil Xehanort 13 as a plot twist, 99% sure he was talking about Terra. Terra's Lingering Will at the Keyblade Graveyard would be easiest to control, since it's just kind of his body and not his mind/heart. Xehanort's ambition/mind traveled through all of the other versions of him, and since Lingering Will is really only alive to beat Xehanort, it would be easy for Xehanort to just stick his mind in him and call it a day. That would mean that when looking for Terra we aren't actually going to be going back there, since Xehanort already has him as one of the 13 Darknesses. For the final battle however, chances are it will probably be at the Keyblade Graveyard. An alternative to this would be Destiny Islands. I say that because Xehanort came from there, and so did Ventus (Sort of), Kairi, Sora and Riku who are all going to be fighting against Xehanort. I also think that going back to the place Xehanort called a prison, and having him monologue there again like he did once upon a time, with everyone listening before the final battle would be really frickin cool.


Now, something I neglected to mention in my giant post up there was something to do with Agrabah. Agrabah has already used two of the plots from the Aladdin Movies, which was the first Aladdin, and the second, Aladdin: Return of Jafar. Something I totally neglected to mention, was the third movie Aladdin and the King of Thieves. There might have spoilers for Aladdin: King of Thieves so you've been warned.

Spoiler

For those that don't know, basically, the plot of the movie is that Aladdin and Jasmine are getting married, and the 40 Thieves are crashing the wedding in order to find this scepter. This object holds a spirit of the Oracle that can answer anything you want to know, but you can only ask it one question. Aladdin wants to ask questions about his past, and the Oracle says that they can only be answered by his father, who is the leader of the 40 thieves and trying to find the Hand Of Midas.

Going on a bit of a tangent about the Oracle first, that could be a HUGE help to Sora and Co. They could ask how to get back either Aqua, Terra or Ven, and they could go even further and ask about their whereabouts, where Xehanort is, ANYTHING. It would be amazing to see that at the end of that world, Sora can finally ask his question, whatever that question is.

The plot is different from the other ones that we've seen in Agrabah so far, and it would have the Palace for the Wedding, the 40 Thieves hide out, and also The Vanishing Isle, where that Hand of Midas is hidden in. This would be AMAZINGLY done, and it ties into how family/friends is really the ultimate treasure and everything like that. It would be a great world and seeing the relationship between Aladdin and his Father, and showing how Sora feels about all of that would be really amazing.

Whether it will be in Kingdom Hearts 3 or not remains to be seen, but I think that could be a really refreshing revamped world if they do decide to go with it.

 

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned The Jungle Book yet. (no, wait, someone did, but not in such a way as to place it on the speculation list) It's not exactly on my wish list, but I think it's the single most likely new world to appear. After all, it's been deleted from two games: KHI because its aesthetic would be too similar to Tarzan, BBS for unknown reasons, but probably related to the use of King Louie - Louie is a pretty obvious caricature of his original voice actor, Louis Prima, and Disney isn't allowed to use Louie without permission from Prima's estate. If we assume both of those issues have been cleared up, they're probably going to go ahead and finally use a Jungle Book world.

Second in likelihood would be a return to Agrabah: I find it likely it'll come back, as a staple of the series almost as prominent as Olympus.... I'm not so sure about the King of Thieves idea. I'd love it if that was true, I just don't see it as very likely. Yes, there's been an appearance by Experiment 221, and KHII's Agrabah plot vaguely resembled The Return of Jafar, but I just don't think that the Kingdom Hearts series will ever truly deal in Disney sequels for its world plotlines. If I'm wrong, I'll be very happy to be wrong, but I just don't think it'll happen.

There's one thing I feel with absolute certainty: Toy Story. Maybe not a world, but some sort of Toy Story material.

Totally agree with what Roxam said about Marvel and Star Wars; it'd be great if they had some kind of presence in KHIII, it would suck if they devoted actual worlds to them.

I'm also internally ruling out anything that came out less than three years ago. While they have jumped on fairly recent works (Pirates of the Caribbean and Tron: Legacy had KH worlds a mere two years after they came out), I think that too much amazing new Disney stuff has come out in the interim between KHII and KHIII to go for the super-recent. Anything from 2012 or before is fair game, but not after.

And I do think it'll favor the new: Nomura said something about how he's having more interaction with the original directors of the Disney properties than ever before, and I think it was said outright that it's because more of those creators are alive than had ever been in previous installments. Keeping in mind that a vast majority of the material in KHII came out in 1990 or later... so KHIII might be even MORE focused on recent stuff. Wow.

 

Since they're confirmed for having Tangled, I feel like adding Frozen would be a little too much of the 2013 generation of princesses. They should feel free to add Sleeping Beauty or Snow White or one of the classics, but there's only so much feminism one game can take. Not to mention a lot of the fans that have been supporting this game have grown up with classic Disney, and I hope the studio takes into consideration how powerful the nostalgia factor can be.

It would be nice if, instead of repeating worlds that have already had two goes, they bring back something from the first that only got one shot. Wonderland, for example, or Neverland could be scaled up from just the clocktower and the ship. I love the recurring worlds (most of the time), but the possibilities for worlds they could add instead are pretty much limitless.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire would be a fantastic add, but I feel that Lilo and Stitch have a stronger chance of appearing, especially since Stitch was a previous summon, and we've visited the worlds of other previous summons like Simba and Mushu. While we haven't seen the worlds of ALL the summons, I think it gives them a greater foothold.

I agree with the statements above that Marvel and Starwars should have a presence, but not a strong one. I think that Starwars is pretty much guaranteed, given how big they're going to become with the return of the movie franchise and Battlefront games.

Agrabah will probably come back to give the King of Thieves storyline, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Little Mermaid returned with Melody as the star instead of Ariel (that'd be pretty cool actually), but I'm hoping against hope that they drop the Pirates of the Caribbean idea. Other then that, any other recurring worlds would definitely be welcome.

 

I had no idea there was a legal issue to do with Jungle Book. Part of the reason why I didn't consider it was, admittedly, because I hadn't seen it in a long time. I had no idea there were issues like that surrounding it.

I've actually am trying to recall if any of the Kingdom Hearts Worlds have used the squeal plot lines, but I do recall them hinting at doing so. Nala, in Kingdom Hearts 2, says that the Pride Lands are depending on you, and so is Nala's and Simba's baby. Now, at the end of Lion King one, yes, it was in the ending scene that Rafiki was holding a Lion Cub to present to the Pride Lands, but it seems like a really out of place thing to mention unless they had some kind of idea to follow that up.

Now, I'm not really sure how long Kingdom Hearts 3 is after Kingdom Hearts 2, and there isn't really a set time, but, Baby Lion Cubs grow up into adults in about 3 years. That means that a Lion King Squeal isn't so far away, depending on the gap. Sora does look like he's grown up quite a bit, but most people assume at least a yearish.

That being said, most of the Disney Squeals are some time after the original movies, which means that we would be waiting till Kingdom Hearts goes further into the future to do them.

Considering that the worlds of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty finished their movie plots in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, I'm not sure that they'll appear again. That, and unless they figure out a very good plot, there isn't very much really to do there.

My own hatred of Wonderland might come into play a bit too much in my original post haha, but if they do figure out how to expand those worlds more, it would be interesting. Neverland got the 'Island Expansion' in BBS, and was also in 358/2 Days, which definitely gave it some more volume. Wonderland on the other land still hasn't actually gone past the Queens Court, and it would be nice if they showed more of the characters like the Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar etc.

I watched Atlantis just yesterday, actually, and I was trying to figure out how that would be placed in Kingdom Hearts. One of the, not really 'problems' I see with it, but just something to consider in general is where it would start. In my head, instead of traveling on the ship with Milo and the others, they would just arrive there with the Gummiship. Maybe they would have to fight leviathan on the way in or something like that, but I don't think they would be traveling with Milo. The reason for that is, well, to put it simply, a lot of people die to get to Atlantis. Even in the movie it addresses this, by saving they started with a crew of 200, and there were only around 40 (at the max, I didn't count lol) of them left. That's really heavy stuff, and I'm not going to lie, even when I was watching it it slightly upset me.

I'm not sure about Little Mermaid II though. From what we've seen Kingdom Hearts 3 isn't too far away from Kingdom Hearts 2. There's probably, at the maximum, a year or two in between. In LM2, Melody is 14 Years old (maybe). I can't remember. Either way, unless we're going to use Xehanort's Time Travel, which I wouldn't be surprised if that happens someday, Little Mermaid 2 is two far away, for now.