The Missing Links
Games that were never released, or were released and can no longer be played. This section speaks about the series as a series of games. It spoils nothing in the main document, but it assumes the reader has finished it.
How this section is organised
Three sections, in descending order of how much they matter to the story the main document tells.
Missing-Link is the one that matters. It was canon, it was set inside the chronology this book follows, and it was cancelled before release. It would have sat between The Book of Prophecies and Dark Road.
The V CAST game was finished and released, but its own director placed it outside the series. It has a complete story, summarised here because it is otherwise very hard to see, and it is not canon.
Everything else is three items with no story in them at all: one cancelled game that never got past its pitch, and two discontinued services. They are listed so the survey is complete.
Everything here is drawn from the Kingdom Hearts Wiki (khwiki.com) and the sources it cites, the same single source the main document is built on.
I. Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link
Canon. Cancelled May 14, 2025. Would have been set between The Book of Prophecies and Dark Road.
Where it would have sat
Missing-Link was meant to take place after The Book of Prophecies and before Dark Road, in a stretch of Scala ad Caelum's history that khwiki calls a "blank era." In khwiki's own words, the game would have "explored the mysteries" of that era. Scala ad Caelum is the city Ephemer founds at the close of The Book of Prophecies, and the city Xehanort trains in during Dark Road.
It would also have reached forward. Tetsuya Nomura said in 2022 that "some figures that appear" in Missing-Link were tied to the story of Kingdom Hearts IV.
What is on record from it
Very little of the story survives in citable form. The worlds and characters khwiki confirms, from the closed beta build and from Square Enix's own announcement, are these:
Worlds. Scala ad Caelum and the Dive to the Heart.
Characters. Three named ones: the Player, Remus, and Freya. khwiki records their names and nothing more about any of them.
That is the whole of the confirmed story content.
How it was made and how it ended
Origins, January 2019. Development began as a research and development project for Kingdom Hearts III, and the first pitch was built on a modified copy of that game. The game itself was then rebuilt from scratch in Unreal Engine 5, according to its lead programmer, Mike Susetyo.
Announcement, April 10, 2022. Revealed at the Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary event. It was planned as a mobile game for iOS and Android, developed and published by Square Enix.
First closed beta, January 13 to 18, 2023. iOS only, Japan only.
Second closed beta, announced October 30, 2023. Opened to Japan, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The iOS test ran from November 29, 2023. The Android test was first set for January 2024 and then postponed so that the game could run comfortably on a wider range of devices. It was rescheduled to April 25 to May 2, 2024, then moved again in May 2024, with another iOS test held at around the same time.
Delay, November 18, 2024. The planned 2024 release was postponed. The announcement apologised to players and promised further information.
Cancellation, May 14, 2025. Development stopped. The team's stated reason was that it would be difficult to offer a service that could satisfy players over a long period of time.
The leak, June 2026. A two-minute opening cinematic from a beta build was leaked on social media. That build was not the one used in the public beta tests. The full opening was posted a few days later.
II. Kingdom Hearts (the V CAST game)
Not canon. Released February 1, 2005. Unplayable since December 15, 2012.
What it was
Its official title was simply Kingdom Hearts. It is usually called the V CAST game to tell it apart from the rest of the series. It was a mobile action RPG for Verizon Wireless's V CAST service and one of that service's launch titles. It was developed by Superscape and published by the Walt Disney Internet Group and Verizon Wireless, and Square Enix had no part in it. Verizon's storefront sold it as Kingdom Hearts 3D, and a few Verizon press releases called it Kingdom Hearts mobile or Disney's Kingdom Hearts 3D Mobile.
Why it is not canon
Tetsuya Nomura addressed it directly in the Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories Ultimania, asked about "a KH being developed for the mobile phone" in America. "There are quite a few things concerning that," he said. "Officially it has nothing to do with the original KH. It's completely different. The title is KH, Sora makes an appearance, but the story has nothing to do whatsoever with the KH, KHCOM, and KHII we're developing, because it is Disney who designed V-Cast." (Translation by Mors, as credited on khwiki. The ellipsis in the source is recast here as a full stop, with every word kept.)
How it was lost
Verizon shut V CAST down on December 15, 2012, and everything exclusive to it went with it. The game has never been re-released. It came in chapters, and a phone could hold only one chapter at a time, so the saved chapter had to be deleted before the next could be downloaded. Preservationists have since recovered and emulated the first, third, and fourth chapters. No files from the second chapter, Wonderland, have ever been found, and it is currently lost media. The soundtrack, by Ian Livingstone, was never released.
The story
Sora, Donald, Goofy, and Jiminy Cricket are on their way home from an adventure. Sora sets the Gummi Ship's controls to "economy wash" and goes to sleep, and his dreams begin to spiral out of control.
Swashbuckler's Island. Sora wakes alone on an island with no idea how he got there. A native parrot named Caw helps him gather materials for a raft. Maleficent summons Shadow Sora to meet him at an altar bearing the Heartless emblem. Sora defeats his shadow, but a tendril of darkness bites him and leaves him under a dark curse. He and Caw set out on the raft to find the Caterpillar in another world.
Wonderland, the lost chapter. Sora is separated from Caw but finds the Caterpillar, who tells him that to stop the darkness growing inside him he must make a potion from the teeth of three magical creatures. Sora defeats the Purple Crocodile and takes the first tooth. Donald and Goofy, meanwhile, go looking for him.
Agrabah. Sora wakes from another dream in Agrabah. An old man in the marketplace will guide him to the Cave of Wonders only after Sora buys him a cane for three gold coins. Inside the cave Sora takes the magic lamp and summons Genie, who grants him three wishes. The first goes immediately on escaping the lava-filled cavern. Sora then confronts Jafar, who has allied himself with the Heartless. He defeats Jafar's cobra form and takes a snake tooth, then uses his second wish to open a portal to Maleficent's Castle. Genie cannot grant the third wish, to defeat the Heartless, so Sora goes through the portal after a dragon tooth. Elsewhere, Maleficent captures Donald and Goofy.
Maleficent's Castle. Sora fights his way in and finds Caw locked in a cell, but it is a trap Maleficent has set to take his Keyblade. Further in he finds Donald and Goofy in prison cells, and finally the Kingdom Key inside a machine. Taking it back sets the machine running, and that was Maleficent's plan: only Sora's pure heart could open the portals that spread darkness to the worlds. She tells him that unless he cures his curse by midnight, the darkness will consume him entirely. Then she strips the Keyblade of its magic and withdraws to the castle's tower.
Sora cannot face her like that, so he goes back and frees Donald and Goofy. While they are working out a plan, Goofy accidentally uncovers a hidden entrance to Maleficent's potion room. Sora draws on Shadow Sora's power through a strange mirror and restores the Keyblade's magic. Donald and Goofy stay behind to find the antidote while Sora climbs to the top of the tower. He defeats Maleficent's dragon form, takes a dragon tooth, and goes back down to shut off her machine. With the worlds safe from darkness, he hurries back to his friends to make the potion. He jumps into the cauldron, and the world begins to spiral around him.
He wakes in the Gummi Ship with Donald and Goofy beside him. The whole adventure was a dream, though some signs of the journey remain.
III. The rest: no story to tell
Kingdom Hearts Online. Cancelled 2014, never announced. A free-to-play mobile action RPG for iOS and Android, begun around 2011 and built in Unity. It was made for Disney Interactive by the South Korean Studio EX, which Disney acquired in December 2012, with Trilabyrinth, Go For Launch Productions, Wideload Games, and Breakiron Animation & Design also contributing. Square Enix was not involved. Former developers also called it Kingdom Hearts Fragmented Keys and Kingdom Hearts Forgotten Keys. Disney Interactive's former co-president John Pleasants confirmed it existed in a Wall Street Journal interview in November 2013. Former developers say it was far along when it was cancelled, and one says it had been approved for release when work stopped. What survives is pitch material. Several Kingdom Hearts heroes would travel through a Game Central Station hub into Disney worlds, and the concept art draws on Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, Frozen, Peter Pan, Snow White, Star Wars, Tangled, Tron: Uprising, and Wreck-It Ralph. khwiki notes that nobody knows whether any of those were actually planned or approved. There is also a simulated battle on the rooftops of Peter Pan's London, made for a presentation to Disney executives. No protagonist or plot is on record. It is one of only two games in khwiki's own list of cancelled Kingdom Hearts games. The other is Missing-Link.
Kingdom Hearts Mobile. Japan only, December 15, 2008, to April 30, 2013. A paid subscription portal for i-αppli phones rather than a game: customisable avatars in a hub called the Avatar Kingdom, messaging, ringtones, wallpapers, eight mini-games, and the download point for Kingdom Hearts coded, which was reached through it. It has no story of its own. Its avatar system came back as the Avatar Menu in Kingdom Hearts Re:coded.
Kingdom Hearts Magical Puzzle Clash. October 12, 2009, now offline. A Bejeweled-style browser game from Square Enix and Disney, made to promote 358/2 Days. You could play as Roxas, Xion, or Axel, and they play almost identically. In khwiki's words, "There is no story to the game," apart from a brief setup in which the three, as Organization members, must defeat Heartless and release captured hearts. It is explicitly not canon.