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The new D23 Ultimate Fan Event taking place this weekend in Anaheim started big, with a ton of new info about upcoming movies and shows in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Frozen, Bluey, and... wait, I briefly forgot what website I was writing for.

Kingdom Hearts, yes, that's what we're here for at the moment. Now that we know that Kingdom Hearts IV is genuinely something that exists, Disney and Square Enix are certainly not going to stop giving us more information about it, and that started last night with a new trailer focusing mostly a new world from Pixar's Coco and Quadratum, the "real world." Sora gets a pretty slick-looking keyblade with a Dia de Muertos theme in there, too.

Separately, Disney also announced a new anime series based on Kingdom Hearts that will be aired on Disney Channel and Disney Plus (or, one would have to assume, local variants of each worldwide). There's no specific information about the characters or worlds to be involved yet, nor a release date, though Polygon reports that Tetsuya Nomura and other Squenix staff are involved in development at some level.

Source: Polygon

As opposed to pop-up shops that have opened in the past, particularly in the United States, Square Enix announced today that two permanent locations combining a café and fan shop will open sometime in "Spring 2026" in Los Angeles and the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Since we're a third of the way through Spring already, I would assume that official opening dates will be published quite soon.

The two locations will, as is quite clear, consist of a café area in which the menu will be inspired by the Squenix canon, and a shop that will have merchandise from the merch arm of the company. Neither will be directly operated by Squenix, but instead managed by licensees. The American shop will be in the Little Tokyo neighborhood of Los Angeles, about 20 miles from Square Enix USA's headquarters. The Shinjuku shop is listed in the press release as taking up three floors in Paselabo Tower, which sounds huge, but I took a look at Google Street View and, well, it seems like "tower" might be a bit aggrandizing.

Hopefully both locations are a success and might lead to more locations in the future, even if they're just pop-up in nature.

Source: Wario64 on Twitter

A New World, the chamber ensemble version that offers Final Fantasy fans a chance to enjoy the music in a more intimate setting than the orchestral Distant Worlds, has announced a flurry of concerts this November. Without further ado, here are the dates:

* Saturday, November 1 – Phoenix, AZ – 7:30 PM @ The Madison Center
* Sunday, November 2 – Albuquerque, NM – 7:00 PM @ KiMo Theatre
* Friday, November 14 – Chicago, IL – 8:00 PM @ Studebaker Theater
* Sunday, November 16 – Miramar, FL – 6:00 PM @ Miramar Cultural Center
* Saturday, November 22 – Oklahoma City, OK – 8:00 PM @ Rose State Performing Arts Center

No particular songs have been announced yet, but the email blast did say the concert would feature music by composers Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu, Yoko Shimomura, and Masayoshi Soken.

Tickets are now on sale for all shows.

Source: A New World

It's been quite a while since we did a concert update newspost, so some shows have definitely come and gone already (like the one I just went to, actually...). So, let's do a quick new list just because every Final Fantasy concert series is enjoyable, especially if you've never gotten to attend one.

For the uninitiated, "Distant Worlds" is the Final Fantasy touring concert series playing music from across the entire spectrum of the mainline Final Fantasy games, and has been going for many years. The seventh album release from the series recently dropped as well. Upcoming concerts include:

• July 11: Vancouver, BC
• September 13: Milwaukee, WI
• September 20: Calgary, AB
• September 27/28: Cincinnati, OH
• October 4: Raleigh, NC
• October 11: Tampa, FL
• November 1: Sacramento, CA
• November 15: Minneapolis, MN
• November 18/19: Salt Lake City, UT
• December 6: Dallas, TX
• January 2/3 2026: Baltimore, MD
• January 30/31: Toronto, ON

"A New World" is the smaller chamber orchestra performance; there are typically fewer of these shows and they play smaller venues. There are only four of those shows upcoming right now, going into this summer - two shows on April 19 in Seattle, and single shows on May 25 and July 12 in Atlanta and Hartford, CT respectively.

Many of the shows are on sale now, and others will be on sale soon. Check the source links below to find out more about shows near you.

Source: Distant Worlds, A New World

Geoff Keighley's "The Game Awards" took place again last evening, and ran probably an hour too long. I know I was certainly tired of it by the end. Square Enix, should they put much stock in these awards, would have likely left disappointed; the company won only for "Most Anticipated Game" and "Best Score and Music," leaving several other awards on the table. This is not necessarily a surprise, given that in most categories, Squenix games were up against some juggernauts of the year.

On the bright side for Squenix fans, though, there were some big announcements. We'll go in chronological order from last night's event: first, the announcement of the first all-new Mana game in a decade and a half, Visions of Mana. It's immediately gorgeous despite clearly being early in development, with a rich color palette and wide scope. The Mana Tree looks amazing as well. There aren't many details yet, but some of the battles show combat with a single character, the lead named Val, and other battles show classic Mana action with a multi-character party. The release date was not pegged beyond "2024," and the game will release for Playstation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Steam.



The second reveal for the night was a new trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, with the debut of the game's theme song. There's a lot to unpack here, and I mean a lot. And if you're looking to avoid spoilers entirely, well, you're probably best served not being on the internet right now, but I'll try not to go into too much detail. Right away, though, we get a clip with Zack and Biggs that reinforces the timeline schisms that have been predicted since the ending sequences of both Remake and Intermission. Rapid-fire after that, we get to hear Bugenhagen, Vincent, and Cid all speak, as well as some Cait Sith brogue. There are new summons, and even our first ever look at Dyne. Marlene crops up in Zack's timeline, with ComaCloud in the background, making predictions about Aerith's fate! And then, we cut to Aerith on stage, in a dress reminiscent of Celes' opera dress, singing the new theme song, with a lot more clips that show just about the entire cast as well as some pretty surprising implications.

The song is called "No Promises to Keep," and it was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and is performed in-game by Loren Allred. It's a lovely tune and feels more upbeat than the theme from Remake; it kind of gives me the feel of the classic theme songs from the PSX era.



The trailer above only shows a bit of the song; live at the show, they performed more with the live orchestra and Loren Allred. The official Game Awards channel published the performance, so you can now watch it here too:

The final reveal for the evening in terms of Square Enix games was pretty widely predicted; the company announced two DLC packages for Final Fantasy XVI. The first, "Echoes of the Fallen," is a side story that appears to take place canonically just before the events of the endgame. It looks to be set mostly in a giant Fallen ruin and will add quite a bit to the lore of Valisthea from before the fall. The second one appears to be completely separate and might not take place in Valisthea at all, so it's interesting to think how that might get set up. Called "The Rising Tide," It will include at the very least two classic Final Fantasy elements not in the original game - Tonberries and Leviathan. "Echoes" was released just after the awards completed last night at a standalone cost of $9.99 US, and "Rising Tide" will be released next Spring. Both can be purchased now for $24.99 US, and I will probably be doing exactly that later today. Since these DLCs are for an M-rated game, there's no point in me embedding it here, so you can watch that one on YouTube.

I've been remiss for quite a while at keeping everyone up on Distant Worlds (and A New World) dates. However, for the former, the Final Fantasy 35th Anniversary Program has continued apace, and there are eleven future dates coming up across the US, Canada, and Brazil:

• Los Angeles, August 13, 2023
• Cleveland, Ohio, September 9
• São Paulo, September 28
• Rio de Janeiro, October 1


• Austin, Texas, November 10
• Montreal, December 3
• Seattle, January 20, 2024
• Charlotte, North Carolina, February 3
• Washington, DC, March 2
• Hartford, Connecticut, March 23
• San Francisco, May 31 and June 1

The smaller chamber orchestra for A New World currently has only three shows through the rest of 2023:

• Boston, September 29
• Cincinnati, October 1
• San Diego, December 8

All shows for both series are available for ticket purchase or preorder right now.

Source: Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds, A New World: Intimate Music from Final Fantasy