New details on Kingdom Hearts: Missing Link have emerged one week on from Square Enix’s tease. The company broke its silence on the upcoming mobile title to reveal a few images, which got fans speculating again after a nine-month dry spell.
Now that the KH:ML ball is rolling again, Square has confirmed an upcoming beta test for the game set to take place in the UK and Australia from November 29 to December 8. It will be a closed beta with recruits currently being accepted, but only iOS users are eligible to apply.
Prospective players can sign up here, until November 19.
An Android-exclusive beta test is expected to follow in January 2024, also in the UK and Australia.
Getting local
With the closed beta’s announcement comes further clarification on how intrinsic Missing Link’s supposed location-based aspects will be, and, as it turns out, they’re fundamental. Location information has to be provided to play the game at all and will be used to display a player’s current position on the in-game map.
Naturally Pokémon Go popularised this gameplay format, but Square Enix’s own Dragon Quest Walk has been using similar technology since 2019 and actually saw a stronger launch in Japan than Go did in 2016.
As for Missing Link, location data will also be used to judge proximity with other players; parties can be formed with up to three people (at least in the beta) provided they are “a close proximity from each other” and forming these parties gives advantages like reduced AP consumption. There will also be raid bosses who can be faced in teams this way, as is standard fare for many geolocation games today.
Monster Hunter Now, for example, lets players form hunting parties to take down challenging monsters together. The game has done incredibly well for Capcom and Niantic since its September release, already reaching 10 million downloads and over $30 million revenue.
Square Enix has noted that beta testers should report in-game bugs on its website and that their player data won’t carry over to the live version of the game when it finally releases. Testers have permission to post videos of themselves playing the game, livestream and post images about it, meaning a boatload of new information can be expected to find its way onto the internet soon. However, it is at Square’s discretion to request takedowns of Kingdom Hearts content the company disapprove of.
After Square launched Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis, a young Sephiroth was added to the game to give it an extra boost.
