Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer features character from delisted spin-off

Kingdom Hearts 4's new trailer drops viewers back into the series' knotty lore. In one brief moment a black-haired younger man wearing a dark face mask and blazer appears amid Sora's battle with a gigantic Heartless in the middle of a city. That figure looks like Vali, a character from Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road, the mobile game centred on the early years of the Xenahort.

He's one of the upper classmen in that story and dies during its events, but Dark Road was only accessible through the Kingdom Hearts Union X app, which has since been discontinued and delisted, so most players can't revisit his original appearance by official means.

If it is Vali, how and why he appears are questions only the fourth mainline entry can answer. The franchise has sprawled across platforms since Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance followed the first installment, and its mythology can be as mind-bending as Metal Gear, Drakengard or any FromSoftware release.

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