Do you love Kingdom Hearts and feel excited about Kingdom Hearts 4? At the same time, it’s probably been a minute since you last played a KH game, and let’s face it, the saga’s story isn't exactly the simplest thing to follow. Well, fear not! If you don't have about 250 hours to spare replaying every game to catch up on the lore, we’re here to help you pick up on the key points and get you all set to embark on this new crazy- I mean, adventure, that Nomura has cooked up!Kingdom Hearts 101The good news is that Kingdom Hearts 4 is the first mainline game in a new chapter of the series: the Lost Master Arc. Does this mean you can disregard everything that happened before and start from scratch? Absolutely not! However, it does mean that much of what is essential to understanding the plot will almost certainly be explained and recapped within the game itself. In this article, we won't be discussing Melody of Memory, the most recent release, since it’s already part of the new arc; we plan to revisit it and delve deeper into its story soon, as it establishes key concepts that serve as a foundation for KH4.That said, the series' fundamental worldbuilding concepts remain crucial to understanding the unfolding events, so let’s take a moment to refresh our memories on them.Os MundosIn Kingdom Hearts, there are various worlds that coexist harmoniously yet separately, with the inhabitants of each typically unaware of the others' existence. These can be divided into two categories: Disney worlds, each based on a distinct film or universe under the Disney IP and populated by characters from their respective source material, and original worlds. From classic animated films like Cinderella, Toy Story, and Tarzan to live-action movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and recent animated hits like Frozen, a wide range of universes is represented in the games, each with its own world.These worlds always follow the same pattern: Sora and his party visit them once or twice, and the story unfolds along the lines of the original film, albeit with changes to accommodate Kingdom Hearts lore (such as Disney princesses being abducted from their worlds, or Disney villains enlisting the help of local antagonists to achieve both their movie-specific goals and a broader objective set by a Kingdom Hearts villain, usually involving the theft of someone's heart). After defeating the world's final boss, Sora uses his powers to restore it to its original state, free from external interference; from then on, the world functions just like a self-contained Disney movie.The other category consists of worlds original to the game; these advance the narrative more directly, linking not to individual world subplots but to the game's overarching story arc. Examples include Traverse Town and Hollow Bastion, which also house the Final Fantasy characters appearing in the game, as well as Destiny Islands (the trio's home) and Scala Ad Caelum, an ancient world that once served as a base for numerous Keyblade Masters. It’s in these worlds that the saga's most pivotal events and battles take place.Keyblades and Keyblade MastersAnd speaking of Keyblade Masters, let's take advantage of that. Since the inhabitants of each Disney world are unaware of the existence of other worlds, and cannot travel between them, there’s a need for someone with the knowledge and ability to protect these individual worlds from greater threats (exactly as we see in the games). That’s the role of the Keyblade Masters. They’re individuals trained from the start to master this unique tool, part sword, part staff, part club, which, alongside its wielder, possesses powers that help worlds maintain their sovereignty and their inhabitants live in peace.To become a Keyblade Master, the candidate or Keyblade Wielder, simply someone who possesses the ability to wield a Keyblade and trains with it and its powers, must pass a test called the Mark of Mastery, in the presence of other established masters. As for the Keyblade itself... Well, it’s a multifunctional weapon, part sword, staff, and club, capable of slaying enemies and casting magic; it has a somewhat impractical shape, yet is aesthetically perfect for a JRPG.Sora and his Keyblade, the Kingdom KeyThey vanish and reappear whenever their wielder needs them, and are deeply connected to that person's heart. Anyone lacking the ability to wield a Keyblade cannot hold one; it simply vanishes and reappears in its wielder's hands. Furthermore, they change form depending on the Keychain attached to the bottom. That’s why, in addition to each character having a unique Keyblade that reflects their personality, Sora’s can change form as he collects these keychains, which, of course, translate into varied in-game stats, making some Keyblades better for magic, others for melee combat, and so on.Some variations of Keyblades found in the gamesLong ago, in the Era of Fairy Tales, there were countless Keyblade wielders, divided into groups with their own training, masters, and the like, but an event known as the Keyblade War (a conflict between these groups) was responsible for virtually wiping out everyone who possessed this ability, save for a select few.Hearts, Heartless and NobodiesAnd from here on out, it's all downhill. Fasten your seatbelts!In this universe, hearts are far more than mere bodily organs or metaphors for love. They serve as the "information center" for a person's body, containing what the game calls "Data", and can be studied, analyzed, and even extracted.In Kingdom Hearts, when someone is "killed" by a wielder of a Keyblade, they don’t actually die; instead, their heart leaves the body. The heart and the body's "empty shell" then become two separate entities: the heart transforms into a Heartless, while the body becomes a Nobody.A poor npc from Traverse Town having his heart stolen and about to be transformed into a HeartlessIf this happens to you, unless you’re an extremely rare case (we only see one in the series, which we’ll discuss below), your heartless will just be a common heartless, like the thousands that Sora faces throughout the games; Sora himself, when he briefly became one, became a Shadow, the most basic type we find of these creatures. Now, your Nobody is a different story.If you’re a main character (the number of belts you wear in your daily life and the spikiness of your hair are good indicators of this), your Nobody essentially becomes a separate person. They will share your appearance but exist as a sentient, independent creature that, given the nature of its creation, lacks a heart. Early on, it’s implied that this makes them cold, evil beings; however, as the games progress, we see that they’re indeed individuals with personalities and feelings, even though, strictly speaking, they lack the heart that makes one "human".If, on the other hand, you’re merely an extra, I regret to inform you that your body will join the ranks of the generic enemies Sora mows down by the dozen while they dance around him.A Dusk, the most basic generic NobodyThe ExceptionsThere are two exceptions to these rules, and they’re quite important because they involve two of the saga's most central characters: Sora and Xehanort.Master Xehanort is the more complicated case, so let’s start with him. Basically, Xehanort is a very old Keyblade Master, one of the few remaining masters from the "old guard", though "alive" is perhaps a strong word in his case. Chronologically, his story begins in the mobile game Dark Road, where he becomes a Master and learns to travel back in time to speak with his younger self and plot world domination (don't question it).He first appears in his elderly form in Birth by Sleep; by the end of that game, he "possesses" Terra, one of the main trio, taking on the form nicknamed by the fandom as "Terranort". After killing his best friend and the other surviving Master, Eraqus, and believing he had ended the lives of his three apprentices, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus, he begins a new life in Hollow Bastion and becomes an apprentice scientist to Ansem the Wise, studying people's hearts.Eventually, he betrays his master and steals his identity, calling himself Ansem. In his eagerness to uncover more secrets about the heart, he uses a Keyblade to "open" himself up, splitting into two separate entities. He’s the exception mentioned earlier, as his Heartless took on his appearance and continued to use the name Ansem. This Heartless, whom we initially know only as Ansem the Seeker of Darkness, without knowing anything about his backstory, is the final villain of Kingdom Hearts 1.Yes, all of these are versions of Xehanort that appear in the plotAs for his Nobody, he assumed the identity of Xemnas and made obtaining a heart for himself, to become a complete person once more, his primary objective. To this end, he plans to use Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds, and assembles a group of Nobodies belonging to key characters (each with their own specific powers and weapons) to aid in this goal: Organization XIII, a group of villains introduced in KH2 who go on to play a central role throughout the rest of the saga.There are still other Xehanorts out there, such as a version of Riku and Young Xehanort (remember the time-travel powers?), not to mention all the characters who’ve been "Norted", yet another term coined by the community to describe when a character becomes a vessel, or a receptacle, for Xehanort.Sora is our other exception and a curious case. At the end of Birth by Sleep, the heart of one of the main characters, Ventus, leaves his body and, for many reasons that would make this article endless if I were to explain, "takes refuge" inside Sora's heart. Then, when Sora opens his own heart with the Keyblade to free all the other hearts that were inside him (there are many, and it's a long story that you can understand better here!), his Nobody doesn't take on Sora's appearance, but rather Ventus's. This Nobody is named Roxas, and he’s the protagonist of Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and the KH2 prologue.Because of Sora, Kairi's Nobody, Naminé, is also quite different from her. Kairi's heart was also inside Sora, and due to the influence of the hearts of Sora, Ventus, and all the Princesses of Heart (there were a lot of them inside Sora), his Nobody, besides being physically different, also has the power to alter the memories of Sora and those close to him, which is the basis of the plot of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, the game between KH1 and KH2.Yes, all these characters are Sora or were inside Sora in some way for a long period of time.DarknessThe Darkness, Darkness with a capital D, is the final concept we need to explain before moving on to a summary of the story. Millennia before the events of the games, Light and Darkness existed as opposing forces in eternal conflict, personified as beings that fought and killed one another. However, the beings of Darkness devised a plan to become indestructible and prevail: if you have no body, your enemy cannot kill your body. They renounced their physical forms and became non-corporeal entities capable of possessing and infiltrating people's hearts.This became more than just an ability; it became a necessity, for without a physical form, these beings would lose their personalities and individuality, devolving into common enemies rather than bosses or major characters. Of all the beings of Darkness that once existed, only thirteen managed to retain their unique identities, surviving all this time by possessing and corrupting beings of Light. These are the Pureblood Heartless, Heartless with pedigree.Darkness's greatest enemy, despite being an extremely ambiguous figure who takes actions for both good and evil, making his true objectives difficult to pin down even though he claims his goal is to defeat Darkness, is the MoM, the Master of Masters. He’s set to become a crucial figure moving forward, so keep that name in mind for now.The Story of the GamesKingdom Hearts 1, Chain of Memories, KH2Meet our classic JRPG protagonist, Sora, complete with an outfit covered in zippers and chains, spiky hair reminiscent of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, and impressively (and comically) large sized shoes! He lives on a tropical paradise called Destiny Islands and dreams, along with his best friends Riku and Kairi, of going on adventures in other worlds; they know these worlds exist because Kairi arrived there from another place when she was younger. The trio believes these worlds lie beyond the horizon of the surrounding seas, so they build a raft to set out in search of adventure.However, one night, Sora wakes up to find his island being destroyed by forces of darkness and strange creatures he has never seen before. Kairi vanishes, Riku joins the invading forces, and Sora is left behind. A strange Keyblade appears in his hands; he manages to repel the creatures but passes out, waking up in a completely new world, Traverse Town, a place where destroyed worlds’ survivors have ended up.Sora eventually joins forces with adventure partners who are instantly recognizable to anyone, Disney fan or not: Donald and Goofy. They serve as the Royal Magician and the Captain of the Guard, respectively, for King Mickey, who, unbeknownst to Sora, is also a Keyblade Master. The King disappeared just as worlds began to be destroyed by a force of Darkness, much like Sora's own world, and the duo is following his final order: to "follow the key". Since the Keyblade apparently answers only to Sora, they team up to form the core party in the games where Sora is the protagonist.From there, the bulk of these three games follows the same pattern: the trio visits Disney worlds plagued by both local villains and original Kingdom Hearts antagonists. Once they eliminate the invading Heartless and/or Nobodies, Sora uses his powers to "seal" the world's heart, the Keyhole, with the Keyblade, thereby preventing further outside interference.And amidst all this, we have the “main” story: In KH1, Maleficent, the “leader” of a council of Disney villains wants to steal the hearts of the Princesses of Heart (that is, the Disney princesses) and use their combined power to dominate the world, helped by Ansem who has his own greater goals of world domination. The plan goes wrong because it’s revealed that one of the princesses is Kairi, and her heart is inside Sora along with those of the other princesses.He opens his heart, frees them all, is “saved” from his heartless form and returns to being human thanks to the light of Kairi's heart. Ansem then appears, possesses Riku (who was “on Maleficent's side” this whole time, deceived by her promises and lies, but returns to Sora's side at the end of it all) and is defeated. After several fights with different forms of the villain, in JRPG style, the group needs to close the door to the kingdom of darkness (a world where Darkness dominates everything), but to do so it’s necessary to have someone on both sides. Sora, Donald and Goofy close on one side, and on the other, inside the Kingdom of Darkness, are Riku and King Mickey Ex Machina, who appears unexpectedly just to help.Chain of Memories picks up exactly where KH1 leaves off: the worlds have all been restored, and Kairi has returned to Destiny Islands as a result; Riku is trapped in the most dangerous place imaginable alongside the King whom Donald and Goofy had been searching for so long; and Donald, Goofy, and Sora find themselves in a sort of space "between worlds", unsure of where to go. As they walk on, a mysterious figure, cloaked in black with a hood obscuring their face, directs the trio toward a castle; having nowhere better to go, they enter: Castle Oblivion.In this game, Sora and his friends revisit the worlds from KH1, but this time, the characters they had previously befriended don’t remember them. Between worlds, they visit floors of the castle itself, and two things happen: they gradually meet various new characters, all wearing the same cloaks as the mysterious figure but revealing their faces, and the memories of Sora, Donald, and Goofy begin to change. They completely forget Kairi; instead, Sora begins to recall growing up alongside a blonde girl named Naminé.To cut a long story of gradual discovery short: the castle is occupied by a faction called Organization XIII, the group of Nobodies assembled by Xemnas (Xehanort’s Nobody, remember?). They’re searching for something vital hidden within the castle and are attempting to control Sora. This is because Sora wields the Keyblade, the only weapon capable of defeating Heartless without causing the hearts that spawned them to vanish; instead, those hearts merge to create a second Kingdom Hearts, an artificial version of the great heart of the worlds that Xemnas seeks to control.Naminé, Kairi’s Nobody, possesses this power over Sora’s memories. The Organization has held her captive since her creation and is forcing her to rewrite Sora’s memories, making Naminé a significant figure in his life; since they control her, they would, by extension, gain control over him.One essential thing to understand about the Organization, which becomes even clearer in Days, is that its internal political intrigue is worthy of Game of Thrones. Literally no one trusts anyone; anyone could betray anyone else at any moment. There are double agents and triple agents; while everyone "answers" to Xemnas, there’s an internal hierarchy based on who holds the most "power". There are factions of "outcasts" plotting to overthrow the more powerful (and arrogant) members, as well as old friendships that weigh heavily on the characters, genuine bonds, endless feuds, and so on.And it’s a betrayal that causes everything to go wrong for the Nobodies. Axel, a fan favorite who also becomes a central character, was part of a group aiming to sabotage the Organization's objective at Castle Oblivion, and he saw Sora as the perfect opportunity to do so. He frees Naminé and orchestrates much of the unfolding drama, though Sora, of course, plays his own crucial role. One by one, he confronts and defeats the Nobodies, with the exception of Axel. In the end, Naminé offers Sora, Donald, and Goofy a choice: she can leave their memories as they are and let them leave immediately, or she can restore them so that Sora correctly remembers Kairi and all the adventures they’ve shared up to that point.Naminé and AxelBut the second option comes with a catch: they will forget everything that happened in the castle, including Naminé's very existence, and the process will take a year. They choose the second option, go to sleep in huge pods while Naminé reconstructs her memories, and write “thank Naminé” in the Talking Cricket's diary, which serves as the journal, the game's notes.Once you finish CoM, a second mode unlocks: Reverse/Rebirth. In this mode, you make your way through the castle again, but this time as Riku and Mickey! They were rescued from the Realm of Darkness by a mysterious masked figure named DiZ. Riku's story revolves around dealing with the darkness within himself, following everything that happened in the previous game, including dealing with a replica of himself created by the Organization's mad scientist, Vexen. They manage to defeat everyone in their path and escape without ever crossing paths with Sora and the others. You may’ve already seen an image of Sora interacting with Riku in Call of Mind, but that's not the real Riku, but rather Replica Riku, a copy of him created by the Organization.KH2 begins by putting you in control of a character a first-time player has never even seen before, though we’ve already mentioned him: Roxas, Sora’s Nobody. He’s been through a lot since his creation, but we’ll cover more on that in the next section. As it stands, the situation is this: Sora is ready to wake up from his long slumber after a year, but to do so, he needs to be whole, which means reuniting with his Nobody. Deeply remorseful for betraying his best friend in the first game, Riku dedicated his life to protecting Sora; he subdued Roxas when the latter refused to go quietly and, alongside DiZ, placed him in a digital version of another original world: Twilight Town.You spend a few days playing as Roxas, growing fond of him and his friends, exploring the town, playing minigames, and planning a beach trip to cap off the summer vacation in style, only to have your heart shattered when, after much internal conflict, Roxas accepts his fate and rejoins Sora, leaving everything behind. After all, none of it ever truly existed in that way, and the summer vacation has, in fact... come to an end.Roxas and his friendsAnd Sora is back! The story once again follows the Disney-world model, with stops in original worlds to advance the central plot, basically the same setup we’ve seen before: The Organization (or what’s left of it) wants to control Sora and the Keyblade to create its own Kingdom Hearts, while we keep battling Heartless, Nobodies, and Disney villains, and taking down more hooded members. Goofy nearly dies, Donald still refuses to heal Sora, and, world by world, we eventually reach Organization XIII's headquarters.We discover that DiZ is actually the original Ansem, Xehanort’s master, whose identity was stolen. He uses a machine to destroy Xemnas’s artificial Kingdom Hearts but blows himself up in the process. Finally, the original trio, Sora, Riku, and Kairi, reunite; however, Riku had to let darkness consume him as part of accepting his morally grey nature, leaving him with the appearance of Xehanort’s Heartless. Through the power of love and friendship, much like when Kairi brought Sora back from his tiny Heartless form, Sora falls to his knees weeping before Riku, holding his hand, and restores him to his normal appearance.He and Sora then defeat Xemnas and end up on a beach in the Realm of Darkness. A message in a bottle reaches them, a letter Kairi had sent Sora across the sea at the start of the game, and this opens a "portal" allowing them to return to Destiny Islands. Everyone reunites, including Mickey, Donald, and Goofy, and we get a happy ending, for the time being.Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Birth By Sleep, Re:Coded, Dream Drop DistanceKingdom Hearts 358/2 DaysThis game tells the story of Roxas's entire existence, spanning the time from his creation at the end of Kingdom Hearts to his capture by Riku and subsequent reunion with Sora. He was recruited by Organization XIII because, as the Nobody of a Keyblade wielder, he possesses that same power and a Keyblade of his own; consequently, he spends the game being sent on missions to eliminate Heartless and collect hearts for Kingdom Hearts.Beyond further exploring the Organization's internal conflicts and politics, the game stands out as the most emotional entry in the series. While it was adapted into a movie for the collections, many elements and nuances were left out, details that can only be truly experienced by playing the original game, making it a unique entry in the series. It chronicles the friendship between Roxas and Axel, one of the first and few genuine friendships within the group. They make a habit of eating ice cream atop a clock tower in Twilight Town, eventually joined by Xion, a newcomer who, for some unknown reason, can also wield a Keyblade and serves as the 14th member of Organization XIII.The three of them form a genuine bond of friendship and mutual protection, which only makes it hurt more when everything falls apart. After betraying everyone at Castle Oblivion, Axel begins to have problems with the rest of the Organization, especially the second-in-command and his former friend, before they both became Nobodies, Saix. Roxas gradually discovers that the Organization isn't exactly benevolent and wants to defect, while Xion... Well, we learn that she isn't even a Nobody, but rather a puppet, an "empty vessel" created by Vexen and brought to life by imbuing her with Sora's memories of Kairi, which had been extracted from him by Naminé. Are you following along?Xion has a few encounters with Riku, who reveals her true nature and the fact that she, like Roxas, must cease to exist so that Sora can wake up. After much internal and external conflict, she accepts her fate and attacks Roxas, forcing her friend to fight and kill her. It’s the saddest scene in the entire series: Xion fading away in Roxas's arms as he gradually forgets everything about her.And in the end, the game concludes where KH2 begins: Riku captures Roxas, places him in the virtual Twilight Town, and we move forward.Birth By SleepThis game is the prequel where we learn about Xehanort's true origins and how he stole Terra's body. We’re introduced to the new main trio, Terra, Ventus, and Aqua, the three apprentices of Master Eraqus in a world called the Land of Departure.Terra and Aqua take the test to become Keyblade Masters, and Eraqus invites his old colleague and best friend, Master Xehanort, unaware that Xehanort harbors ill intentions. The villain watches the exam, in which only Aqua succeeds and earns the title; he then exploits Terra’s moment of weakness and insecurities to turn him against his Master and enlist his help in stealing the princesses' hearts using his Keyblade (anticipating the plans he would later execute in Kingdom Hearts 1). Aqua sets out to bring Terra to his senses, while Ventus, the youngest and most impulsive of the group, disobeys Eraqus and follows them as well.As it turns out, Xehanort’s true plan centers on Ventus. Xehanort was the one who brought Ventus to Eraqus, but he had done something beforehand: Ventus’s heart is pure light because the villain had "extracted" all the darkness from it. This darkness took the form of Vanitas, Ventus’s evil counterpart, who bears a resemblance to Sora due to the ensuing complications involving their hearts. Xehanort’s ultimate goal is to force Ventus and Vanitas to fight, as this clash will result in the forging of the χ-blade (pronounced "chi-blade"). The χ-blade is a special Keyblade that allows its wielder to unlock and control the true Kingdom Hearts.After much anguish, lies, betrayals, and revelations, such as Terra realizing he’d been manipulated immediately after killing his Master, Eraqus, and Ventus gradually piecing everything together, the game culminates in an all-out battle at the Keyblade Graveyard, the site of the Keyblade War centuries prior. Everyone fights, but despite the best efforts of both the characters and the player, neither side emerges victorious. The X-blade isn’t forged, but Ventus loses his heart (which goes to Sora) and Terra loses everything, becoming a Heartless and having his body possessed by Xehanort, though not before Aqua throws herself into the Realm of Darkness and becomes trapped there while trying to save him from that same fate.Masters Xehanort and EraqusBefore that, she also did one more thing. She took Ventus's heartless body and placed it in a hidden room within the ruins of the world where they lived, the Land of Departure, before transforming that world into another one we already know: Castle Oblivion. Locating this very thing was the objective the Organization was pursuing during Chain of Memories.Kingdom Hearts Re:CodedThis is the most “filler” game in the series, yet it introduces concepts that are crucial to the rest of the saga. Basically, you play as a digital, data-based version of Sora, restoring Jiminy Cricket’s original journal from KH1, by revisiting Disney worlds and destroying large, corrupted data cubes, driven by curiosity regarding the phrase “Thank Naminé.”It reveals the contents of a letter Sora receives from Mickey in the KH2 epilogue, stating that they must save the people Xehanort has harmed over the years, and mentions for the first time the Book of Prophecies, an ancient tome that foretells the entire future; we also learn that Xehanort's Keyblade is an ancient one, passed down through generations before reaching him.Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop DistanceAnd this is the game that dumps the heaviest amount of lore on you right at the end. The premise is quite simple: Sora and Riku must undergo the Mark of Mastery exam to become Keyblade Masters (because saving every world time and again isn't enough). To do this, Master Yen Sid tasks them with unlocking the Keyholes of seven sleeping worlds to gain the Power of Waking, a power needed to help those in need (Ventus, Aqua, Terra, Roxas, Xion, etc.).To achieve this, they enter the Realm of Sleep and travel through the worlds, completing the task individually. However, Organization XIII has returned with a plan to plunge Sora into an ever-deeper sleep, making him vulnerable to possession by Xehanort. Realizing something is wrong, Riku enters Sora's dreams, accompanying and protecting him in the form of a Dream Eater.In the end, we discover that Xehanort hasn’t abandoned his plans and is creating a new Organization XIII, comprised of 13 "Darknesses" (13 vessels for himself), because he has grown tired of relying on others. These include former members of the original Organization who’ve been "Norted" (possessed by him), as well as different versions of himself that he gathered through time travel.The "original" Master Xehanort regains his physical form and attempts to possess Sora, but is thwarted by Riku, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Lea, Axel's "Somebody" (the original person who existed before his "Nobody" form), who returned to being his own person after Axel died. To rouse Sora from the "coma" resulting from these events, Riku enters his heart and finds the data planted there by Ansem. Riku becomes a Master, but Sora doesn’t; he still needs to obtain the "Power of Waking" if he wants to help everyone.Kingdom Hearts 3The plan to defeat Xehanort’s 13 Darknesses is to confront him with the 7 Lights, seven Keyblade wielders representing the Light. However, some of these seven are still lost or missing, or currently inside Sora, so he needs to regain the Power of Waking (the power to awaken these individuals), which he lost in DDD. Sora, Donald, and Goofy set out on this mission, while Mickey and Riku head to the Realm of Darkness to search for Aqua, and two of the seven, Kairi and Lea, train with their newly acquired Keyblades.Mickey and Riku battle Aqua, who had been corrupted by the Realm of Darkness after spending so many years trapped there, and eventually manage to save her with Sora's help. She retrieves Ventus's body, which she had hidden away in Castle Oblivion; after regaining the Power of Waking, Sora restores Ventus's heart to his original body, and he awakens. Part of Aqua's story in the Realm of Darkness is told in the game Kingdom Hearts 0.2: A Fragmentary Passage, but it’s merely a short episode that offers no new information relevant to the overall story summary.It turns out that, alongside Ventus's heart, which was still inside Sora at that point, there were two other hearts present: those of Roxas and Xion. Since they’re Nobodies and lack bodies of their own, they plan to place their hearts into "puppets" created by Vexen, much like how Xion herself was originally created.With the seven Guardians of Light assembled (Sora, Riku, Kairi, Aqua, Ventus, Lea, and Mickey), they head to the Keyblade Graveyard for the final showdown against the new Organization XIII. There, another instance of time travel occurs because our heroes lose the battle. Sora wakes up in a sort of limbo known as the "Final World", where he manages to restore his body and use the Power of Waking to travel back in time and alter the outcome of the fight.Sora in the Final WorldThe game's finale features a series of battles against the 13 Darknesses; during one of them, we finally discover what happened to Terra's heart. You remember Ansem, Terranort's Heartless and the final boss of KH1? Well, he’s accompanied by another Heartless, one lacking a human form, and it’s revealed to be Terra, trapped and corrupted by darkness. After the fight, Sora saves Terra, leading to an emotional reunion between him, Aqua, and Ventus after more than a decade apart.A similar moment occurs after defeating a hooded figure, an Organization "puppet", when Sora frees the hearts of Roxas and Xion. Both gain new bodies and reunite with Lea (formerly Axel), bringing yet another trio of best friends back together.After defeating all members of the Organization, the group faces Xehanort himself once again. He captures Kairi to goad Sora into attacking him; in the process, the X-blade is forged, and he opens Kingdom Hearts. Sora and Xehanort end up in Scala ad Caelum, the villain's home world, for the final battle. After defeating him, the spirit of his best friend, Master Eraqus, appears; he makes Xehanort see the full extent of the evil he caused and has him hand the X-blade over to Sora before passing away. Now wielding the most powerful Keyblade of all and aided by his friends, Sora closes and seals Kingdom Hearts.The game ends there, but Kairi is still missing, and that’s where the Re:Mind DLC comes in. Sora searches for and retrieves the fragments of Kairi's body, much like he did with his own between the first and second final battles; however, overusing the Power of Waking causes him to vanish completely, leaving his friends behind. Everyone is worried about Sora, and now it’s up to his friends to save our favorite protagonist, wherever he may’ve ended up.And that’s where the story stands right now! We already know that Sora ended up in a "non-world" called Quadratum, a world lying beyond the reality we know in KH, and we know which characters are there with him; however, how the others got there and the exact nature of Quadratum remain unknown to us. If you want to dive a bit deeper into this specific aspect, you can read our article on the first KH4 teaser and our theories.Since the story paused there and we’re waiting for the next mainline game, that’s it for now, right? Wrong! We still need to cover a few things from the mobile games to make sure everything is clear, so let’s get to it.Kingdom Hearts UnionX and Kingdom Hearts Dark RoadDespite being played by only a very small fraction of the fandom compared to the other entries, the mobile titles contain the most story elements relevant to KH4. Strelitzia, the red-haired character who appears alongside Sora in Quadratum in the teasers, comes from that era; she’s the late sister of Lauriam (who later became the Nobody Marluxia, the final boss of Chain of Memories) and was murdered during the events of the mobile games.These games are heavy on information and backstory, and they’re no longer playable since the servers have been shut down and the titles removed from app stores. However, there are various compilations of the cutscenes and story available on YouTube; if you’re interested (and have the time), they’re well worth watching to catch all the nuances and references.For now, let’s summarize everything you need to know about these games: they take place many years before the others, nearly a millennium earlier, in an era known as the Age of Fairy Tales. Before the existence of multiple worlds and before the Darkness itself infiltrated the scene, all worlds coexisted as one, the Realm of Light. This is where a figure we mentioned earlier comes into play: the Master of Masters (or "MoM" to those closer), a leader among the Keyblade Masters and Wielders.The MoM is quite ancient; he was but a child when the beings of Darkness renounced their physical forms, as we recounted earlier in this article, and throughout his life, he witnessed countless friends, family members, and allies die or become corrupted at the hands of the Darkness. He possessed the ability to foresee the future and, based on this, wrote the Book of Prophecies, chronicling everything that had happened and everything yet to come. However, the MoM is a morally grey figure; while his actions may ultimately stem from good intentions, the means he employs are decidedly questionable.He had 6 apprentices, Ava, Ira, Gula, Invi, Aced, and Luxu, and gave specific orders to each: for the first 5, called Foretellers, a role that each should play and keep secret from the others, in addition to telling each of them to create a Union and begin training young Keyblade Wielders. He gave each of them a copy of the Book of Prophecies, though each copy was missing a crucial page and concluded with the revelation that, in the end, Darkness would triumph over Light. As a final twist, he privately told each of them that there was a traitor in their midst, and then he vanished.He handed Luxu not only a copy of the book but also a black box, his own Keyblade, featuring an eye of the MoM on its hilt that granted him knowledge of everything the weapon had witnessed or would witness. He ordered Luxu simply to keep the items safe and observe everything that unfolded from that point on. Since this required surviving far beyond a normal lifespan, the MoM explained that Luxu would have to leave his body behind and essentially possess other people, changing his identity repeatedly over the centuries.As might be expected, once their Master dropped the bombshell about a traitor and vanished, conflicts quickly proliferated; this eventually culminated in four of the Unions fighting one another and everyone perishing. This was the infamous Keyblade War, and the Keyblade Graveyard, the site seen in the endings of Birth by Sleep and KH3, is where it all took place. The fifth Union, the Dandelions (led by Ava), was instructed to go into hiding and fled to another world, giving rise to the Keyblade Wielders who continued to exist in the world, albeit in considerably smaller numbers.Dark Road, despite being a game very rich in lore, serves much more to give context to Xehanort and how he became the person he became, not influencing the history of the games directly and serving only as extra context, so we won’t mention almost anything about this game here. Suffice it to say that it’s revealed that Xehanort is originally from Destiny Islands, just like Sora, and that there’s a prophecy that says that a child from the Destiny Islands will have the power to connect with the hearts of others and prevent the complete destruction of the Light. It’s believed by some that this child is Xehanort himself, but it becomes obvious when putting together the pieces we have that it is, in fact, Sora.There’s also a character called Bragi, who we discover is, in fact, Luxu in his most recent “version” from that time. He realizes that Xehanort has the potential to be who he’s looking for and decides to keep an eye on him. Xehanort also briefly meets with the MoM, who tells him that, with enough power, he could do whatever he wanted in the world. The game is about how his view of Darkness and the other people around him was shaped by everything he witnessed and experienced, especially a plot of corruption and murders involving his classmates.In the secret ending of KH3, we see the Foretellers reuniting, appearing for the first time since their unions were completely decimated in the Keyblade War. They reunite at the crowded graveyard, with the exception of Ava, the Union leader who didn’t participate in the war. Joining them, however, is Luxu in his latest form, one quite familiar to players: Xigbar/Braig. We have known him for a long time, yet until now, we believed him to be merely another Nobody controlled by Xehanort.Finally, a brief scene offers a glimpse of the MoM's whereabouts for the first time in millennia; he’s in Quadratum, surely no coincidence, given that Sora is there as well. As for his intentions and plans, however, we’ll have to wait and see.ConclusionAnd that’s a wrap! That covers the entire Kingdom Hearts story you, dear reader, need to know to keep up with everything released so far and what’s coming next regarding the highly anticipated Kingdom Hearts 4, all condensed without leaving out any crucial context.We’ll keep covering all the latest news and teasers, and dive deeper into what was revealed at the D23 panel last Saturday, so stay tuned! Did we miss anything, or do you have any questions? Let us know in the comments, we’ll be keeping an eye out.Thanks for reading, and see you next time, Keyblade Masters!
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