Rebirth director says Elena's sea salt ice cream isn't a Kingdom Hearts homage

There's a point in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth where rookie Turks operative Elena cools off with a stick of sea salt ice cream — a custardy, aquamarine treat featured throughout the Kingdom Hearts series. Reasonable fans therefore assumed Elena's frozen dessert was a sweet self-reference, but Rebirth director Naoki Hamaguchi says no.

"It might be disappointing to hear this, but Elena's ice cream isn't a homage to Kingdom Hearts." Now, if you've suddenly started to hear a thousand distant howls, know that it isn't the wind. It's the lonely cries of Kingdom Hearts fans around the world realizing the franchise they constantly fret about being dead is more comatose than they first assumed.

Still, Kingdom Hearts is not dead dead. The developer confirmed Kingdom Hearts 4 is definitely in production, seven years after Kingdom Hearts 3 launched, though there is still no release date.

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