Disney confirmed a Kingdom Hearts anime series during its D23 2026 presentation in California on Friday. The company also revealed a release window for Kingdom Hearts 4. The two announcements arrived minutes apart during the presentation. It was fans’ biggest look yet at where the franchise is headed next.
The series is coming to Disney+ and the Disney Channel. Tetsuya Nomura and the creative team at Square Enix are co-producing it with Disney. The company teased the project as “ready for a new adventure.” It described the show as an original story “inspired by the beloved video game franchise.” Disney gave no firm premiere date or episode count for the series.
Kingdom Hearts anime series joins a growing D23 slate
Kingdom Hearts has appeared at Disney events before through trailers and cameo art. This marks the first time the company has greenlit a standalone show set in the franchise. D23 is Disney’s fan convention. The company has historically used the convention to reveal major projects across its film, television and gaming divisions. The Kingdom Hearts news sat alongside a wider slate of announcements at the California event this year.
Nomura’s direct involvement suggests the anime will tie into the same continuity as the mainline games. It seems unlikely to exist as a separate retelling aimed at newcomers. Square Enix has not said whether the show will cover events already told in the games or introduce new story threads. The studio has previously expanded the series through spin-off titles and compilations. A full television adaptation is new territory for the franchise, and it gives Disney another way to keep the story active between mainline game releases.
Kingdom Hearts 4 gets a late 2027 window and a Coco-inspired world
Disney also confirmed that Kingdom Hearts 4 will release in late 2027. Kingdom Hearts 3 launched in January 2019, so the new game arrives close to nine years after the last mainline entry. The presentation included the first footage of a new world based on Pixar’s Coco. Disney built it around the film’s Land of the Dead setting. The world borrows Coco’s concept of the “final death,” the moment when a person is forgotten by everyone still living. Dialogue from the footage shows protagonist Sora going missing after he enters the world. Other characters in the scene try to work out what happened to him. It is the second Pixar world in the series, after Toy Story appeared in Kingdom Hearts 3.
Square Enix showed new Kingdom Hearts 4 gameplay earlier this summer, the first look at the game in four years. The publisher confirmed it will launch day one on Nintendo Switch 2. According to the official description, Sora “will once again journey to realms where new figures cross his path and new powers awaken his next chapter.” He explores the mysterious city of Quadratum along the way, meeting characters introduced in the game’s earlier reveal trailers.
Disney has not announced a cast, episode count, or premiere date for the anime adaptation. Kingdom Hearts 4 remains on track for late 2027 across platforms including Switch 2, with more details expected as Square Enix moves closer to launch. Both projects give the long-running franchise its clearest release timeline in years, after a stretch where fans had little beyond scattered teasers to go on.