New Kingdom Hearts III trailer shows off Monsters Inc. content

The new Kingdom Hearts III trailer: come to check the release date hasn’t slipped any further, stay for the adorable Mike Wazowski gags.

Kingdom Hearts is a thing that shouldn’t really work. Square Enix, the venerable RPG developer, created a mashup with Disney characters and environments. It’s stupid. It’s jarring. But – crucially, inexplicably, against all sense of logic and decency – it’s glorious. Like pineapple on a pizza.

And no more is the glory of Kingdom Hearts III more apparent than in the latest trailer, which shifts gears seamlessly from nonsense J-RPG bad guy quipping, to the cast of Toy Story battling the Heartless, to Sora, Donald and Goofy catching Mike and Sully with an unauthorised human child at Monsters Inc.

Oh, and did we mention that the Kingdom Hearts III heroes get monstrous redesigns when they’re in Monsters Inc. world?

There’s plenty of Monsters Inc. world on show in the trailer, plus more of a look at Toy Story world, and glimpses of Ariel and Rapunzel, from the Little Mermaid and, er, Rapunzel respectively. And then a bit more J-RPG babble to finish off.

It really should work. It should be awful. But it’s not.

The new Kingdom Hearts III trailer does also still indicate a 2018 release date, but given how long it’s taken us to get to this point, you can forgive us for being a little nervous about delays.

Watch this space for a more concrete release window or date for Kingdom Hearts III.