Kingdom Hearts Missing Link Release Window And Beta Announced
Kingdom Hearts Missing Link trailer logo
The Kingdom Hearts series has been blowing minds and stealing hearts for over 20 years now, through a combination of heavy-hitter numbered titles and equally important but decidedly lower-budget side games. The quality of smaller games varies, as laid out in our ranking of every Kingdom Hearts game, but every game is vital to the plot. The next chapter – a mobile game called Kingdom Hearts Missing Link – is just around the corner, and Square Enix is ramping up its promotion.
Square Enix released a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts Missing Link, showing off a little bit of the story and also giving a release window. Kingdom Hearts Missing Link is set to be released sometime in 2024, the company says, on iOS and Android — though it seems like it might not be limited to mobile platforms forever. We’ll get to that in a bit.
The trailer shows a very Bloodborne-ish keyblade wielder, who resides in the world of Scala ad Caelum, the city built atop the ruins of Daybreak Town, the origin of all keyblade wielders. The keyblade wielder is sent out on missions to prove themself, and must travel the entire world (our world, Earth) to track down and eliminate anomalies. At least, that’s what I got out of the trailer, it’s Kingdom Hearts so I could be very wrong.
Square Enix says that Missing Link will tell “the story of a blank era,” and it looks like a few characters from Kingdom Hearts UX will make an appearance, like Brain, who woke up in Scala ad Caelum at the very end of that game’s story. How these characters will factor into the grand scheme of things is anyone’s guess, but given Brain is almost as important to the story as, say, Ventus or Lauriam, expect it to have big ramifications for Kingdom Hearts 4.
Kingdom Hearts Missing Link will be a “GPS game,” somewhat like Pokemon Go in a way, but will be entirely playable from your home. How, exactly, that’s going to work is truly anyone’s guess — Square Enix hasn’t exactly explained the ins and outs of it yet, though closed betas in Japan have shed a little bit of light.
Players in the West will also get to have a go at the game soon, with Square announcing a closed beta for Australia and the UK. Around 3000 participants between the two countries will get to try the game out, first with iOS players in November 2023 and then with Android players in early 2024.
Curiously, as previously mentioned, the game is entirely playable from your home, and can even be played with a PS4, PS5, or Xbox controller — a sign that this might not be locked to mobile devices forever. We’ll have to see how that shakes out in the future, but it’s a little glimmer of hope for a game that would otherwise be locked to mobile devices forever, like UX before it, and could disappear like that game, too.
