The Kingdom Hearts series has been running for over 20 years, and this time it's finally not another spin-off game — it's a whole new medium. Disney officially announced at the D23 event that Kingdom Hearts will get an animated series, headed to Disney+ and Disney Channel down the line, with the working title simply "Kingdom Hearts" for now.
More noteworthy than the word "animated" itself is how Disney is framing the project's positioning — instead of re-enacting the game storylines players already know by heart, it'll tell a brand-new original story built on top of the existing lore. Series creator Tetsuya Nomura and the Square Enix development team will both be involved in production, and Disney Kids & Family President Ayo Davis described the tone of the finished product as "unmistakably Kingdom Hearts" — meaning the format is changing, but the core essence won't. For a series with millions of accumulated players and a deeply tangled web of character relationships, that promise carries more weight than any adjective could.
At the same event, Square Enix also unveiled a new trailer for Kingdom Hearts IV, confirming the game will launch in late 2027, coming simultaneously to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. The story picks up after Sora's adventures in the mysterious city of Quadratum, sending him back into new worlds to meet new characters.
The biggest reveal this time around is that the world of Coco is officially joining Kingdom Hearts IV. Pixar confirmed the news on social media in tandem, and Benjamin Bratt — voice of the first film's villain, "the God of Music" Ernesto de la Cruz — revealed on site that he'll be reprising the role in Kingdom Hearts IV. That effectively brings the original Coco voice cast straight into another franchise's world.
Coincidentally, Disney also dropped the latest details on Coco 2 the same day, revealing that a now-young-adult Miguel will step back into the Land of the Dead, with the film slated for a November 2029 release. Put the two pieces of news side by side, and de la Cruz is set to appear in both the sequel film and Kingdom Hearts IV around the same time — arguably the detail from this D23 haul most likely to spark speculation.
An exact release date for the Kingdom Hearts animated series has not yet been announced.
