As part of an extensive interview with Famitsu, Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura admitted that Square Enix hired a loremaster to keep the plot of the series cohesive while the developers continue to work on Kingdom Hearts IV. The main reason is that, with all the side projects, it has become increasingly difficult to catch other teams up on what the main series is doing, thus necessitating a role for someone to align the series in perfect order.
“As the Kingdom Hearts series has continued, the number of characters has inevitably increased, and the story has become more complex,” Nomura told Famitsu. “For example, with the newly announced anime series, the number of external people involved in the Kingdom Hearts series has increased, and explaining the settings and scenarios each time has become quite difficult. Fortunately, the staff working on the ‘χ series’ had someone who meticulously compiled and organized the settings of past Kingdom Hearts series in an easy-to-understand way, and he was also in charge of explaining the scenarios and settings to Disney.”
Nomura explains that Disney specifically requested his team compile a bunch of different materials for them, so that wound up becoming a loremaster role at Square Enix. Nomura calls the person a “proofreader,” but their task was communicating the overall story to Disney for marketing purposes. “He is well-liked because he explains things to Disney as clearly as possible, using diagrams and such. His role internally is to proofread the script,” Nomura explains. Further clarifying, Nomura states that this loremaster doesn’t write any new compositions, but only checks if they contradict past events.
With a plot as far-reaching as Kingdom Hearts, I completely understand needing someone to keep things in check. The overall plot can be summarized fairly easily, but with so many spinoffs and projects that have fallen into obscurity (if not outright removed from public consumption), it makes sense to want someone on staff who’s entire job is making sure a new idea isn’t a rehash or in direct conflict with a past development.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
