Tetsuya Nomura, director of Square Enix’s long-running Kingdom Hearts series, has said that he’s ‘reconsidering’ simultaneous worldwide releases for future projects, following the Kingdom Hearts 3 leaks that occurred last year.
Footage of the game’s title screen, install screen, and more appeared online in December, after an individual began selling copies of Kingdom Hearts 3 via the Facebook Marketplace. Fan communities immediately placed a lock-down on the illicitly acquired footage, in order to avoid spoilers, and Nomura was prompted to release a statement reassuring players that the “biggest spoilers” weren’t currently available in the game.
Now, in an interview with Famitsu (translated by Siliconera), Nomura has shared his feelings on the leak – which, he said, ultimately amounted to four copies of the game from a single source. “The only thing that really disappointed me about everything,” he explained, “is that it brought sad thoughts to people who were looking forward to Kingdom Hearts 3.”