Cancelled Kingdom Hearts game intro leaked, teasing Kingdom Hearts 4
The opening cinematic for Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link, a mobile game Square Enix cancelled, leaked online this weekend. It shows Keyblade-wielding astronauts, a familiar city, and a character who already appeared in Kingdom Hearts 4’s trailers.
A piece of a Kingdom Hearts game that no longer exists just showed up online, and fans are treating it like buried treasure.
Over the weekend, the opening cinematic for Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link — a mobile game Square Enix cancelled before release — leaked. By Monday morning, the full clip was out and confirmed to be the real thing. Now the fanbase is combing through it for clues about the future of the series, especially the long-awaited Kingdom Hearts IV.
For the uninitiated, Kingdom Hearts is the crossover series that mixes Square Enix‘s original characters with Disney‘s worlds and heroes, following a kid named Sora across Disney-inspired lands. It started in 2002 and has built a famously devoted following ever since.
What Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link was
Missing-Link was a GPS-based mobile game, in the same real-world-map style as Pokémon Go. Square Enix revealed it in 2022 during the franchise’s 20th-anniversary event, and it was set in Scala ad Caelum, a location series fans know well.
It was originally aimed at a 2024 release, ran through several closed beta tests, and creator Tetsuya Nomura even said at one point it was “almost ready.” Then it quietly slipped, and eventually it was scrapped entirely.
Why Square Enix cancelled it
Square Enix pulled the plug in an update on the official Kingdom Hearts site, apologizing to fans who’d been looking forward to it. The company said it decided the game would be “difficult” to keep running at a satisfying quality over the long haul, which is a common problem for live-service mobile titles.
The one comfort in that announcement: Square Enix stressed the series would go on, and that the team was “hard at work on Kingdom Hearts IV.”
What the leaked cinematic shows
The leaked opening is genuinely strange, in the way Kingdom Hearts tends to be. A group of people in what look like astronaut suits, their faces hidden, step through a portal into a black void. There they find a giant, monstrous Heartless waiting in the dark, and they fight it with Keyblades using a mix of physical attacks and magic.
When the creature falls, the darkness clears to reveal a modern cityscape. Many fans think that city is Quadratum, the realistic setting teased for Kingdom Hearts IV, while some believe it could be Scala ad Caelum from Kingdom Hearts 3. Keyblade-wielding astronauts fighting a Heartless in a void that opens onto a real-looking city is a lot to take in, and that’s exactly why fans are so interested.
The Kingdom Hearts 4 connection
Here’s why this matters beyond a cancelled game. Square Enix had positioned Missing-Link as an important chapter in the larger Kingdom Hearts story, with characters from it planned to appear in Kingdom Hearts IV.
The leak seems to back that up. Fans spotted Brain, a character from the mobile game Kingdom Hearts Union X, and got a clear look at Sigurd, a mysterious figure who’s stayed hidden in past games.
Sigurd has already turned up in Kingdom Hearts IV‘s trailers, which explains why some fans reacted so strongly to seeing him there. A Kingdom Hearts IV trailer during the June 2026 Nintendo Direct even showed Sora in Quadratum alongside a few Missing-Link faces.
So while the game is gone, its story and characters may not be. It’s very possible Square Enix folds pieces of Missing-Link into Kingdom Hearts IV, which is why fans are studying every frame of this leak.
What’s next
The best chance for real answers comes soon. Disney‘s D23 event on August 15 includes a dedicated Kingdom Hearts deep dive scheduled for the afternoon, and past D23 showcases have delivered big Kingdom Hearts reveals.
Missing-Link itself isn’t coming back. But if those astronauts and that city carry over, the game’s real ending might turn out to be a scene in Kingdom Hearts IV instead. D23 is the next place to find out.
Article compiled with the help of the Pirates & Princesses newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Kotaku (July 20, 2026) — the leaked cinematic, confirmation it’s genuinely from Missing-Link, and the Brain/Sigurd character sightings
ComicBook.com — the shot-by-shot description of the intro, the astronauts and the giant Heartless, and the Quadratum-vs-Scala ad Caelum debate
Game Rant — the June 2026 Nintendo Direct KH4 trailer, the Missing-Link tie-in, and the D23 August 15 deep dive
CGMagazine / IGN — Square Enix’s cancellation statement, the 2022 reveal and beta history, and the “hard at work on Kingdom Hearts IV” confirmation