The Missing Links

Games that never came out, or came out and can no longer be played. This section talks about Kingdom Hearts as a series of games. It gives away nothing from the main document, but it is written for someone who has finished it.

How this section is organised

Three parts, starting with the one that matters most to the story this book tells.

Missing-Link comes first. It was canon, it belonged inside the chronology this book follows, and it was cancelled before it came out. Its place would have been between The Book of Prophecies and Dark Road.

The V CAST game comes second. It was finished and sold, but the series' own director has said it is not part of the series. Its whole story is told here, because almost nobody can play it any more, but it is not canon.

The last part covers three things with no story in them: a cancelled game that never got beyond early pitch material, and two services that have been switched off. They are here so that nothing is left out.

The facts in this section come from the Kingdom Hearts Wiki (khwiki.com), the KHUX Wiki, and the sources they cite. The wording is this book's own.

I. Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link

Canon. Cancelled May 14, 2025. Its story would have fallen between The Book of Prophecies and Dark Road.

Where it would have sat

The game was to be set in Scala ad Caelum during the long stretch of its history that no game had yet covered: after Ephemer founded the city at the end of The Book of Prophecies, and before Xehanort arrived to train there in Dark Road. Its story was meant to fill in what happened in those years.

It would have pointed ahead as well. In 2022 Tetsuya Nomura said that some of the characters who appear in Missing-Link have a connection to the story of Kingdom Hearts IV.

What is on record from it

Almost none of its story can be pinned down. From the closed test builds and Square Enix's announcement, only this much is confirmed:

Worlds. Scala ad Caelum, and the Dive to the Heart.

Characters. Three with names: the Player, Remus, and Freya. Nothing more is known about any of them.

Beyond that, the game's story is unknown.

How it was made and how it ended

Origins, January 2019. It started as an experiment connected to Kingdom Hearts III, and its first pitch ran on an altered copy of that game. Its lead programmer, Mike Susetyo, has said the team later started it over, this time in Unreal Engine 5.

Announcement, April 10, 2022. Shown at the event for the series' twentieth anniversary, as a phone game for iOS and Android made and published by Square Enix.

First closed beta, January 13 to 18, 2023. On iOS, in Japan only.

Second closed beta, announced October 30, 2023. Open to players in Japan, the United Kingdom and Australia. The iOS round began on November 29, 2023. The Android round, planned for January 2024, was pushed back so the game would run well on more phones; it was moved to April 25 to May 2, 2024, and then moved once more that May, alongside a further iOS round.

Delay, November 18, 2024. Square Enix put off the release it had planned for 2024, apologised, and said more news would follow.

Cancellation, May 14, 2025. Work on the game ended. The reason given was that the team did not think it could keep players satisfied over the years a service game has to last.

The leak, June 2026. About two minutes of the game's opening film, taken from a build that was never used in the public tests, appeared on social media. The rest of the opening followed 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 title was just Kingdom Hearts; people call it the V CAST game so as not to confuse it with the others. It was an action RPG for phones on Verizon Wireless's V CAST service, and one of the first games offered there. Superscape made it, and the Walt Disney Internet Group and Verizon Wireless published it; Square Enix had nothing to do with it. Verizon's store listed it as Kingdom Hearts 3D, and a few of Verizon's press releases used other names again, such as Kingdom Hearts mobile.

Why it is not canon

Tetsuya Nomura was asked about it for the Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories Ultimania. In short, he said it has no official connection to the series: it uses the name and Sora appears in it, but Disney designed it, and its story has nothing to do with the games Square Enix was making.

How it was lost

Verizon closed V CAST on December 15, 2012, and everything sold only through it disappeared along with it. The game was never sold again anywhere else. It was split into chapters, and a phone could keep only one at a time, so each chapter had to be deleted to make room for the next. Enthusiasts have since recovered and emulated chapters one, three and four. Nobody has ever found a copy of chapter two, the Wonderland chapter, and it is lost. Ian Livingstone's music for the game has never been released.

The story

On the way home from an adventure, Sora sets the Gummi Ship to "economy wash" and falls asleep with Donald, Goofy and Jiminy aboard. His dreams begin to go wrong.

Swashbuckler's Island. Sora wakes by himself on an island, with no idea how he got there. Caw, a parrot who lives there, helps him gather what he needs to build a raft. Maleficent sends his shadow to meet him at an altar marked with the Heartless emblem. Sora beats it, but a thread of darkness bites him on the way out and leaves a curse in him. He sails off with Caw to look for the Caterpillar, in another world.

Wonderland, the lost chapter. Sora loses Caw but finds the Caterpillar, who tells him how to stop the darkness spreading in him: brew a potion from the teeth of three magical beasts. Sora beats a purple crocodile and takes the first tooth. Donald and Goofy, meanwhile, set out to find him.

Agrabah. Another dream ends and Sora comes to in Agrabah. An old man he meets in the market will show him the way to the Cave of Wonders, but only once Sora has bought him a walking stick for three gold coins. In the cave Sora finds the lamp and calls up the Genie, who offers three wishes. The first is spent at once, getting out of the cavern as it floods with lava. Sora then faces Jafar, who has joined forces with the Heartless, beats him in the shape of a cobra, and takes a snake's tooth. His second wish opens a way to Maleficent's castle. The Genie cannot give him his third, an end to the Heartless, so Sora goes through the portal to find a dragon's tooth. Elsewhere, Maleficent has caught Donald and Goofy.

Maleficent's Castle. Sora battles his way inside and finds Caw in a cell, but it is bait: Maleficent wants his Keyblade. Deeper in are Donald and Goofy, locked up, and at last the Kingdom Key itself, held inside a machine. Pulling it free starts the machine, which is what Maleficent wanted all along: only a heart as pure as Sora's could open the portals that carry darkness into the worlds. She warns him that if the curse is not lifted by midnight, the darkness will take him completely, drains the Keyblade of its magic, and retreats to the top of her tower.

With no power in the Keyblade, Sora goes back to free Donald and Goofy first. As the three of them plan, Goofy stumbles on a hidden door into Maleficent's potion room. Sora uses a strange mirror to borrow his shadow's strength and brings the Keyblade back to life. Donald and Goofy stay to find the cure while Sora climbs the tower, beats Maleficent in her dragon form, and takes the dragon's tooth, then goes down again to switch off her machine. The worlds safe, he runs back to his friends for the potion, jumps into the cauldron, and feels the world begin to spin.

Then Sora opens his eyes aboard the Gummi Ship, Donald and Goofy beside him. It was all a dream, though a few traces of the journey are still there.

III. The rest: no story to tell

Kingdom Hearts Online. Cancelled in 2014, never announced. A free phone action RPG for iOS and Android, started around 2011 in the Unity engine. Disney Interactive had it made by Studio EX, a South Korean studio it bought in December 2012, with several other companies helping (Trilabyrinth, Go For Launch Productions, Wideload Games, and Breakiron Animation & Design). Square Enix had no part in it. People who worked on it have also called it Kingdom Hearts Fragmented Keys and Kingdom Hearts Forgotten Keys. John Pleasants, then co-president of Disney Interactive, admitted it existed in a Wall Street Journal interview in November 2013. Former staff say it was well advanced when it was dropped, and one says it had already been cleared for release. What is left is pitch material: heroes from the series passing through Game Central Station into Disney worlds, and concept art drawing on films from Aladdin and Frozen to Star Wars and Wreck-It Ralph, though nobody knows which of those worlds were ever really planned. There is also a short battle on the rooftops of Peter Pan's London, built to show Disney's executives. It has no known hero and no known plot. Missing-Link and this are the only two cancelled Kingdom Hearts games on record.

Kingdom Hearts Mobile. Japan only, December 15, 2008, to April 30, 2013. Not a game but a paid subscription service for Japanese i-αppli phones: avatars you could dress up in a hub called the Avatar Kingdom, messaging, ringtones, wallpapers, eight small games, and the place you downloaded Kingdom Hearts coded from. It had no story. Its avatars came back later, in Kingdom Hearts Re:coded, as that game's Avatar Menu.

Kingdom Hearts Magical Puzzle Clash. October 12, 2009, now offline. A match-three browser game from Square Enix and Disney, made to advertise 358/2 Days. You could pick Roxas, Xion or Axel, who all play much the same. There is no story beyond a one-line setup: as members of the Organization, the three have to beat Heartless and set captured hearts free. It is not canon.