The Kingdom Hearts anime just became real. During the Disney Entertainment Showcase at D23 2026 in Anaheim, California on August 15, 2026, Disney officially announced that Kingdom Hearts: The Series — an anime television series based on the iconic video game franchise — has been ordered at Disney+ and Disney Channel. The announcement was made by actor Benjamin Bratt, who also dropped the second major Kingdom Hearts news of the night: Kingdom Hearts IV is officially coming in late 2027, and the world of Pixar’s Coco is joining its roster of Disney worlds.
The franchise has been celebrating its 25th anniversary throughout 2026, and D23 delivered the anniversary announcement that fans have been speculating about for years. Kingdom Hearts: The Series will be developed in partnership with series creator Tetsuya Nomura and Square Enix, giving it direct creative continuity with the games rather than being a licensed adaptation produced without the original team’s involvement.
Kingdom Hearts: The Series — What Disney Has Confirmed
Disney’s official description frames the series as a reimagining rather than a direct adaptation: the anime will tell a brand-new story that expands on the Kingdom Hearts universe while celebrating the characters that have defined the franchise since 2002. That positions it similarly to how the games themselves approach their Disney world crossovers — original narrative built around beloved characters and settings rather than a straightforward retelling of the game plots.
Disney Kids & Family president Ayo Davis described the project: “‘Kingdom Hearts’ has captivated gamers everywhere with its unique blend of adventure and imagination. There’s something really exciting about taking a world fans have spent years exploring through the games and bringing it to life in a completely new way. And with a creative team that is working closely with the legendary Tetsuya Nomura, our new series will be unmistakably ‘Kingdom Hearts,’ while giving fans a whole new way to experience the world they love.”
The dual Disney+ and Disney Channel order is significant. Disney Channel placement suggests the series is being positioned as accessible family entertainment rather than a mature streaming-only project — which aligns with Kingdom Hearts’ long-standing identity as a game series that appeals across age ranges. The Disney Channel audience that grew up with the games in the 2000s now has children of their own, and the dual platform strategy covers both demographics simultaneously.
No premiere date, episode count, animation studio, or voice cast details have been confirmed beyond today’s announcement. Given Nomura’s involvement as a creative partner, fan attention will immediately turn to whether the game’s original voice cast — Haley Joel Osment as Sora, David Gallagher as Riku, and others from the 25-year-old franchise — will carry over to the series. No information on this has been shared yet.
Kingdom Hearts IV: Coco World Confirmed, Late 2027 Release
The second major announcement of the night came directly from Benjamin Bratt, who stepped onstage and confirmed that Kingdom Hearts IV is officially targeting a late 2027 release — and that the world of Coco will appear in the game, with Bratt reprising his role as Ernesto de la Cruz from the Pixar film. Pixar’s official account confirmed the news: “Just revealed: the world of Coco will be coming to KINGDOM HEARTS IV, launching in late 2027.”
Kingdom Hearts IV was first announced in April 2022 during the series’ 20th anniversary event. Square Enix has confirmed Kingdom Hearts IV will be a multiplatform title, launching on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC and Nintendo Switch 2. The Coco world adds to the confirmed setting of Quadratum, the photorealistic city that appears in KH4’s announcement trailer, alongside whatever mix of Disney and Pixar worlds the full game will include.
The Coco world is a particularly interesting choice for Kingdom Hearts IV. The Land of the Dead’s visual language — its vibrant colour palette, its distinctive architecture, the emotional weight of the story around music, memory, and family — offers something genuinely different from the more action-oriented worlds the series typically explores. De la Cruz as a Kingdom Hearts villain is an inspired fit: his charm-masking-manipulation personality maps neatly onto the kinds of antagonist roles Disney worlds have historically filled in the franchise’s broader story.
The Kingdom Hearts Collection and What Else Was Announced
Today’s D23 announcements arrive alongside a packed 25th anniversary window for the franchise. Kingdom Hearts Collection [I~III] is scheduled to arrive on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on October 8, 2026, bringing the main saga together for current-generation consoles. This makes the full original trilogy accessible on current hardware for the first time, timed to capitalise on the anniversary and the interest generated by today’s announcements.
The DEEP DIVE into KINGDOM HEARTS panel that ran earlier on August 15 at 4:30 PM PT featured Square Enix co-director Tai Yasue, Haley Joel Osment, David Gallagher, Nana Gadd from Disney & Pixar Games, and Renée Johnson from Disney Character Voices. That panel provided behind-the-scenes development coverage of the franchise’s history — with today’s Disney Entertainment Showcase delivering the new announcements on top of it.
Why This Announcement Matters for the Franchise
Kingdom Hearts as an animated series has been discussed, rumoured, and hoped for throughout the franchise’s entire existence. The property is structurally built for animation — it already exists as games that feel animated, it has decades of worldbuilding across Disney properties, and its emotional core around friendship, light, and darkness translates naturally to serialised episodic storytelling. The reason it took 25 years to get here is the complexity of the rights arrangement between Disney and Square Enix, and the challenge of doing justice to a fanbase that has an extraordinarily deep emotional relationship with the source material.
Nomura’s direct creative involvement is the detail that matters most for fans worried about the adaptation getting the tone wrong. His fingerprints on the games are unmistakable — the specific blend of earnest emotional sincerity and operatic narrative complexity that defines Kingdom Hearts at its best is entirely a product of his creative vision. A series developed with his direct participation as a partner rather than as a licensor is a fundamentally different proposition from a typical video game adaptation.
Details on animation studio, showrunner, voice cast, release date, and episode structure are all still to come. Given the significance of the announcement and the franchise’s 25th anniversary momentum, more information should follow relatively quickly. For now: it’s confirmed, it’s happening, Nomura is involved, and Kingdom Hearts IV with Coco is coming in late 2027.
For more gaming and entertainment news this week, check out our look at the three major games launching August 27 including MGS Master Collection Vol. 2, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, and Star Wars Zero Company, the Krispy Kreme Pokémon donut collection launching August 18, and the Discord free upload limit increase to 20MB now live.
