The Best Kingdom Hearts PC Mods For Every Game

Kingdom Hearts 3

The Kingdom Hearts series is near and dear to my (kingdom) heart, with each of its eleven million main series games all holding a special place in my games library and in my psyche. Despite the series being over 20 years old, you can actually play almost all of the games on just about any platform you’d want, with HD collections for the games being available on PlayStation, Xbox, and technically Switch via cloud.

The absolute best way to play these games though is on PC. With the exception of KH3 and 0.2, all of them can be played on very modest hardware at a fluid 60fps, with all the bells and whistles you’d expect. While I love all of these games dearly, they’re not exactly perfect, with each having its own problems here and there — especially on PC. That’s where mods come in. They can change just about anything about the games, and they can turn a frustrating gaming experience into a fantastic one with just a few minutes and a little bit of technical know-how.

Some of these are minor changes, others are total overhauls to the experience, but as a fair warning, all of them will require you to mess around with your game files. It’s pretty simple to reinstall the games if something goes wrong, but just keep in mind that it’s not for the technically unaware.

We’ve trawled the internet (okay, it was mainly just Nexus Mods) to find the very best Kingdom Hearts PC mods for each of the seven playable games.

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix

What’s the most frustrating part of the first Kingdom Hearts game? You could make the argument for the slow opening, but it’s not that. You could even point to the Tarzan world, which is frustrating to play. Unfortunately, it’s not that either. No, the worst part of the first Kingdom Hearts is the inability to open chests in combat.

The Open Chests In Battle mod does exactly what it says on the tin — changes the game so you can still open chests while you’re engaged in combat. It’s a small change, sure, and it won’t make or break your experience, but every game following it lets you open chests whenever you like, so adding it back into the first game is a welcome addition.

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories

Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories is a wonderful, experimental game that uses cards instead of traditional combat, and it’s got a fantastic story to boot. Despite the naming scheme, this is actually the game you should play immediately after Kingdom Hearts, otherwise things will get a little out of sorts and be just a touch confusing.

But did you know you don’t just play as Sora in Chain of Memories? Once you clear the game, there’s a second, more difficult game mode where you play through the story from Riku’s perspective, paving the way for the anti-hero’s triumphant return in Kingdom Hearts 2. Maybe you don’t want to play through the whole game first though, and the Unlock New Game Plus Content mod lets you start Riku’s story without first having to even touch Sora’s story.

Kingdom Hearts 2

Kingdom Hearts 2 is an almost perfect game, and that’s why it landed in the second spot in our ranking of every Kingdom Hearts game. The combat is fast, snappy, and excellent, the progression is great, and only like two worlds absolutely suck to play — a record for the series. It’s also got a fantastic story… but it starts off a bit dull.

Don’t get me wrong, the cold open with Roxas as the protagonist instead of Sora is fantastic, and it’s definitely worth playing through at least once to get a feel for how Roxas fits into the picture. But it is very slow, and despite the story significance, once you’ve played through it once it’s not worth playing through again. The Roxas Tutorial Skip mod lets you skip all of that, dumping you right after you gain control of Sora — an absolute necessity when playing through for a second (or tenth) time.

As an honorable mention, if you’re looking for something wildly different, we’d suggest checking out the Kingdom Hearts 2 randomizer. It changes up where every item in the game is, what your keyblades do, and so much more. It’s a lot of fun for series veterans, but it’s very complex to set up, and should only be attempted if you know the game like the back of your hand.

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep

Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep is the prequel game that, technically, started it all. Originally released on the PSP after the release of Kingdom Hearts 2, BBS fills in a huge chunk of the back story, setting up the events that would see Riku, Kairi, and Sora battling against Xehanort for years to come.

Unfortunately, its PSP origins means it came with a few compromises, and one of those was that the camera was a little too close to the player character. Dream Drop Distance also had this problem, which was fixed in its HD port, but BBS was sadly not so lucky. The Improved Camera mod pulls the camera back a bit, much more similar to DDD or KH2, which makes it significantly more pleasant to play on the big screen.

As another honorable mention, the Birth By Sleep Ultimate Mix mod implements the camera fix and makes thousands of small changes to give the game a bigger overhaul, with tweaked physics, a complete rebalancing of enemies, enhanced music, and more. Like the KH2 Rando mod, it takes a bit to get it going, but it’s not a bad way to get started with BBS.

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance

Dream Drop Distance is easily my favorite game in the series — I called it the best in my ranking of the games and I absolutely stand by that. One of the best aspects is the Drop feature, which has you switching between Riku or Sora throughout the story based on your performance playing as the other character. It forces you to think and play strategically, maximizing your play to get the most out of each character’s strengths.

That said… maybe you just don’t want to deal with the time pressure of the Drop gauge. I get it, sometimes it can be a bit much, there’s no judgment here! If that’s the way you want to play it, the No Drop Gauge mod is the way to go. It prevents the gauge from lowering over time, and optionally removes the HUD element for it. If you still want to switch between the two characters, all you have to do is open up the menu, so you’re not missing out on much.

Kingdom Hearts 0.2

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep -A Fragmentary Passage- has the longest name, but is actually the shortest game in the series. It was somewhat of a tech demo for KH3, but also tells an important story of what happened to Aqua, Mickey, and Riku in the Realm of Darkness throughout the series.

It’s a wonderful little experience of about 10 hours long, but there’s one big problem: The Demon Tide. It’s a boss Heartless that you fight a few times, and it’s honestly kind of annoying to deal with. It has a lot of health, hits just a little bit too hard, and doesn’t give a lot of opportunities for attack. The Demon Tide and Demon Tower Nerf mod lowers its health and makes it a little less resistant to your attacks, making it far more manageable overall.

Kingdom Hearts 3

Kingdom Hearts 3 probably has the most mods out of any of the KH games on PC, with mods that change your playable character, overhaul the combat entirely, or even introduce whole new worlds. The use of Unreal Engine makes modding much more flexible and versatile, and the community has really taken off with it.

Those wild adjustments aren’t the focus of what we’re spotlighting today, though. Instead, we’ve gone with a mod called Remind Ability Integration, which simply takes the abilities and rewards for completing tasks in the Remind DLC and adds them to progression throughout the main game. The abilities you get from Remind aren’t actually that big, so having them earlier in the game isn’t going to make you overpowered or anything, but having to wait so long kinda sucks.