With zero fanfare, the future of Kingdom Hearts gets a little messy as one of its most important games has been delisted
In a series as long-running as Kingdom Hearts, where every game is important, what happens when one disappears?
.jpg?width=70&height=70&fit=crop&quality=60&format=png&auto=webp)
Without any kind of announcement from Square Enix, mobile game Kingdom Hearts Union X Dark Road has been delisted.
The thing about Kingdom Hearts, is that if you actually play the games, overall it's not that confusing. Square Enix has made that easier over the years with its various ports that consist of certain games in full, others compressed into cutscenes. But there's been one game that has been stuck on mobile devices, despite being one of the most important for the future of the series: Kingdom Hearts Union X Dark Road. This one has a whole bunch of lore, and one of its main characters even shows up in Kingdom Hearts 3 - another, smaller but soon-to-be important character, Strelitzia, also made an appearance in Kingdom Hearts 4's first and only trailer. So why, then, has Square Enix delisted Union X Dark Road without any kind of announcement?
Fans noticed that it wasn't possible to search and download the title from either the iOS or Google Play stores last week, and days later Square Enix doesn't appear to have commented on it at all. For a while the game's website (which is still live) allowed you to click on the Google Play store banner to download it, which I tested myself, and the game still works fine - though all links just now greet you with a page that says "forbidden," which at least feels appropriately Kingdom Hearts, even if it is disconcerting.
There is another Kingdom Hearts mobile game on the way, Missing Link, but in spite of a few playtests that have taken place over the past several months, there hasn't been any word on when it will actually be released. It's always possible that this delisting is making way for Missing Link, but Union X Dark Road was essentially a glorified cutscene viewer, and now there's no other legal way to watch any of these cutscenes unless you already have it downloaded. Some fans are hoping for a full on remake, though I consider that to be an unlikely option given Square Enix's recent change in business strategy.
Hopefully these cutscenes will be included somewhere in Kingdom Hearts 4 so that they can be viewed more easily, as otherwise Tetsuya Nomura might have quite a few fans in his inbox asking him so heavy lore questions the mobile game had already answered.