'Kingdom Hearts 3' release date news: Game director talks combat system

Though "Kingdom Hearts 3" was announced more than three years ago at E3 2013, little has since been revealed about the upcoming action role-playing game by Square Enix.

Fortunately, "Kingdom Hearts 3" co-director Tai Yasue recently spoke to GamesBeat about the Disney-centric RPG and revealed some interesting details about the game and the current state of its development.

Yasue co-directs both "Kingdom Hearts 3" and "Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue," an HD remastered collection of the "Kingdom Hearts" series and a successor to "Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix."

Speaking with GamesBeat, Yasue said that they wanted to incorporate many of the moves from "Birth By Sleep" in "Kingdom Hearts 3."

"Aqua's magical spells, for example, and her style changes," he said. "We wanted to change toward an enhanced version of that."

According to Yasue, the moves in "Kingdom Hearts 3" will be a lot flashier but also not too difficult. "We have the same sort of command menu as the numbered titles, 2 and 3," he added. "That's very similar in 0.2. It's sort of a mixture between 'Birth By Sleep' and 'Kingdom Hearts 3', both aspects of that coming together."

"Kingdom Hearts 3" is the 11th installment in the "Kingdom Hearts" series and is the sequel to "Kingdom Hearts 2." Since the release of "Kingdom Hearts 2," Square Enix has come out with eight other titles. Two of these, "Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth By Sleep" and "Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8," are coming out in December.

"Birth By Sleep" is being released for the Nintendo 3DS while "2.8" is being developed exclusively for the PS4. When asked whether he fears that Xbox One users will feel left out, Yasue said: "Kingdom Hearts 3 is very much — it's a game that will be better if you understand all the other stories. But at the same time, you can enjoy it without following the whole arc."

According to Yasue, while having experienced the whole arc would help players better understand the game, they can still have fun in the Disney worlds presented in each installment.

Square Enix has not announced the official release date for "Kingdom Hearts 3." Nonetheless, VG 24/7 says that there's a good chance that the game will be released in 2017.