Kingdom Hearts director Tetsuya Nomura has revealed that Disney was extremely supportive of Sora's inclusion in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, calling the crossover a "great opportunity." Nomura goes on to explain that it was actually him who was hesitant to bring Sora to the game, but is now thankful he did due to the character's popularity and the reaction of fans.

Nomura dropped this bombshell in an interview with Game Informer, as he explains he was worried about the crossover potentially clashing with established Kingdom Hearts lore if Sora were to be included:

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"Most of the feedback when Sora was [announced] for Smash Bros. Ultimate was, "I can’t believe Disney okayed for him to be in this game." Behind the scenes, I was actually the one being very picky about his appearance in Smash Bros," explains Nomura. "Disney was the one that was like, ‘Go ahead! This is a great opportunity." I thought it would be tough to pull off because it might clash with the established lore in Kingdom Hearts and the Disney worlds, so it was an opportunity I had to consider very carefully."

Sora in Kingdom Hearts 3.

While it was actually Nomura being worried about Kingdom Hearts lore that meant we had to wait this long for Sora to crossover, it's easy to see why so many believed it was Disney's doing. Despite being a collaboration between Square Enix and Disney, it's the latter that decides where and when Sora can pop up, and with how long fans had been requesting the guy to be added to Smash, people just naturally assumed it was Disney pulling the strings.

Of course, Nomura talked about other things during his interview, mainly about where Kingdom Hearts is headed as a series after the announcement of Kingdom Hearts 4 a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, he remained quite tight-lipped on when we can expect the game to drop, although if a comment by Goofy's voice actor is anything to go by, it won't be for a while. It was recently revealed that Bill Farmer didn't even know about the announcement of Kingdom Hearts 4 until a fan told him at MomoCon 2022.

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