Summary
Kingdom Heartscreator Tetsuya Nomura has revealed that he wasn’t around for the chance elevator ride that famously led to the creation of the series.
If you’ve been a fan of Kingdom Hearts long enough,then you have no doubt heard the story of how the wonderfully weird crossover between Square Enix and Disney came to be. As it goes, Square and Disney shared offices in Arco Towers in Japan, leading to a chance meeting between executives in an elevator where the idea of a collaboration between the two companies was pitched.
That story has become a very well-known part of Kingdom Hearts' history, but there are some details that get mixed around as it gets retold. One such detail is that Tetsuya Nomura was in the elevator when the pitch happened, something that he’s confirmed once again wasn’t the case at all, even if he eventually found himself in a room expressing interest in the project.
Tetsuya Nomura Says He Wasn’t In The Elevator Ride That Resulted In Kingdom Hearts
As highlighted by Twitter user aitaikimochi,Tetsuya Nomura recently took part in a Famitsu interview with Reynatis director Takumi Isobe, where the two talked about their history as developers and working with one another on the game’s The World Ends With You crossover.As great as it is to hear about Rindo’s return in Reynatis, the highlights of the piece are when Nomura is asked about Kingdom Hearts.
Towards the end of the interview, Nomura is asked about the famous story of Kingdom Hearts being conceived thanks to a chance encounter in an elevator. In response, Nomura says that he wasn’t actually in the elevator at the time, so he isn’t really sure what happened to lead to the crossover being agreed upon.
“I wasn’t in the elevator, so I don’t know what actually happened, but I happened to be there when Sakaguchi-san and Hashimoto-san (※3) were talking about making a Disney game, and I raised my hand and said, ‘I want to do that’. Now I can’t even remember why I was there when Sakaguchi-san and Hashimoto-san were talking in the first place.”
Nomura says that his involvement in Kingdom Hearts started when Hironobu Sakaguchi and Shinji Hashimoto were talking about making a game with Disney, which caused him to express an interest in leading the project. Funnily enough, Nomura has no idea why he was in the room when Sakaguchi and Hashimoto were talking about what would eventually become Kingdom Hearts.
Even if Nomura wasn’t in the elevator when Square and Disney started talking about working on a project together, he still played a very important role in getting it all started. I dread to think of a world where Nomura wasn’t in the room with Sakaguchi and Hashimoto to show his interest in the role.
