A modder has added the Olympus Coliseum to Kingdom Hearts 3, alongside NPCs, recreated cups, dynamic parties, and more.
One of the biggest omissions from Kingdom Hearts 3 was coliseum matches within Olympus, a mainstay of previous numbered titles. There were battle gates, but they were far from what fans wanted. Previously, we reported that a mod that adds coliseum-style matches to the game was in progress, but several months later it's now available for everyone to download on Nexus Mods.
The mod was created by Aproydtix and it's some seriously impressive work. Not only does it add in coliseum matches to the game, but those matches take place in a custom-built map that resembles how the coliseum might look on top of Olympus. The new area leading to the coliseum also has NPCs in the form of Meg and Phil, who don't actually make many appearances within Kingdom Hearts 3.
Aproydtix took things one step further and added custom UIs and menus to access the cups, as well as implementing a scoring system similar to the one found in the second game. There are cups recreated from Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2, as well as brand new ones created for Kingdom Hearts 3.
Beyond just adding coliseum matches to the game, which is impressive enough as it is, Aproydtix went really in-depth with the details, such as including a crowd in the stands that can be adjusted, limiting the cups you can access depending on where you are in the game, and even having a hard mode that resembles Paradox Cups from Kingdom Hearts 2. It's exactly what Kingdom Hearts 3's coliseum matches should have been like if they'd been included at all.
Although you'd think that Aproydtix would want to rest easy after implementing one of the community's most requested features, they're not stopping there, as custom cups, a fight against Sephiroth, victory poses, and more cups created for Kingdom Hearts 3 are planned to be added in the near future.