Disney is making a Kingdom Hearts anime series, announced at the D23 Entertainment Showcase on Friday, August 14, 2026. It is headed for Disney+ and Disney Channel, is being developed with Tetsuya Nomura and Square Enix, and tells an original story rather than adapting a game beat for beat. No release date was given.
What Disney announced about the Kingdom Hearts anime
The announcement came during the Disney Entertainment Showcase rather than the Marvel or Lucasfilm blocks, and it was brief. The confirmed points:
| Detail | Status |
|---|---|
| Format | Original anime series |
| Platforms | Disney+ and Disney Channel |
| Partners | Developed with Tetsuya Nomura and the Square Enix team |
| Story | A new story expanding the Kingdom Hearts universe, not a game adaptation |
| Animation studio | Not announced |
| Release window | Not announced — described as in production |
| Related | Kingdom Hearts IV confirmed for late 2027 |
Twenty-four years is a strange amount of time to wait
Kingdom Hearts launched on PlayStation 2 in 2002. It is a series in which Final Fantasy characters, an original spiky-haired teenager and Donald Duck fight shadow monsters through Agrabah and Halloween Town, and it has spent more than two decades as one of the most obviously animation-ready properties Disney owns without ever being animated.
That delay is the interesting part, and it is not really a mystery. Kingdom Hearts is a co-owned property. Disney supplies the worlds and characters; Square Enix supplies Sora, the Keyblade, the Organisation and the plot. Every screen adaptation therefore requires two companies with very different content strategies to agree on who controls the story. Disney announcing this as a co-development “working closely with” Nomura is the sound of that negotiation finally landing.
Original story, not an adaptation — and why that is the right call
Disney was specific that the series tells a new story rather than retelling the games. On paper that reads like the safe corporate option. In practice it is the only workable one.
The Kingdom Hearts plot is famously, almost proudly impenetrable. The mainline numbered games are separated by prequels, midquels, a browser game, a rhythm game and a mobile title whose lore turned out to be load-bearing. Adapting that faithfully would mean an anime whose first season has to explain Nobodies, Heartless, Unversed, Norted vessels and time travel before Sora can swing a Keyblade. An original story lets the series use what actually made the games popular — a kid, two Disney sidekicks and a new world every few episodes — without inheriting twenty years of continuity debt.
It is worth noting how well that episodic world-hopping structure maps onto television. Each Disney film in the games is essentially a self-contained arc with its own supporting cast and its own boss. That is a season of anime with the shape already built in.
Kingdom Hearts IV is coming in late 2027
The anime was not the only Kingdom Hearts news at D23. Kingdom Hearts IV — first revealed back in 2022 and quiet for long stretches since — got a four-minute trailer and a launch window of late 2027.
Line those two up and the strategy is obvious: an anime that can introduce the franchise to people who have never touched a PlayStation, timed to run alongside the first mainline game in nearly a decade. Disney called Kingdom Hearts a billion-dollar franchise in its own D23 materials. This is what a company does when it decides a games property should be a media property.
What we still do not know
Quite a lot, and the gaps are the ones that determine whether this works:
Which studio animates it. No animation house was named. “Anime” in a Disney press release has meant genuine Japanese production before, and it has also meant American-made shows in an anime-adjacent style. Which one this is will tell you more about the final product than any plot detail.
Whether Sora leads it. Disney’s description follows Sora travelling with Donald and Goofy, but an “original story” could as easily mean a new Keyblade wielder. Nomura has form for introducing protagonists nobody asked for and then making them essential.
Which Disney worlds are cleared. Every world in the games is a separate rights conversation internally. The presence of Pixar, Marvel or Star Wars worlds — all of which Disney now owns and none of which have appeared meaningfully in the games — would be a genuine signal of how seriously this is being treated.
If you follow seasonal anime, our Fall 2026 anime lineup tracks what is confirmed and dated right now, and our isekai explainer covers the world-hopping genre this series sits next to.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does the Kingdom Hearts anime come out?
Disney has not announced a release date or window. The series was confirmed as in production at D23 on August 14, 2026, headed for Disney+ and Disney Channel.
Is the Kingdom Hearts anime based on the games?
Not directly. Disney described it as a brand-new original story that expands the Kingdom Hearts universe while featuring the characters fans know, rather than a retelling of the games’ plot.
Is Tetsuya Nomura involved?
Yes. Disney said the series is being developed in partnership with Nomura and the creative team at Square Enix, with Disney Kids & Family president Ayo Davis citing that collaboration directly.
When is Kingdom Hearts IV releasing?
Late 2027. Square Enix showed a four-minute trailer at D23 and confirmed the window for the game, which was first announced in 2022.
Sources: the D23 2026 Disney Entertainment Showcase, with reporting from Variety, Deadline and Anime News Network.
