How to Catch Up on the Entire Kingdom Hearts Series

By Jaymo | Aug 16, 2026

So, Kingdom Hearts 4 is finally coming in late 2027.

If you have only played Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, and 3, you might think you are already ready for the next game. And technically, yes, you can absolutely play the numbered trilogy and enjoy the main story. But if you want to understand what is happening in Kingdom Hearts 4, there is a little more homework involved. A lot of new players understandably assume that Kingdom Hearts is basically a trilogy. In reality, the series has spent years building a much larger story across main games, spin-offs, mobile games, browser games, and some extremely complicated lore.

And with Kingdom Hearts 4 bringing a lot of those threads together, now is probably the best time to catch up. Someone on Twitter/X has shared one of the best ways to experience it, so we thought we would go over it all with you!

The Kingdom Hearts 4 Catch-Up Order

If you want to experience the story in a recommended sort-of release order, this is clearly the best recommended route. It was originally posted by MoreLimitless on Twitter/X:

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories
Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix
Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded
Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
Kingdom Hearts χ [chi]
Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover
Kingdom Hearts Union χ [Cross]
Kingdom Hearts 0.2
Kingdom Hearts III
Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind DLC
Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory
Kingdom Hearts Dark Road

And yes, I know that list looks absolutely ridiculous when you see it written out. That is kind of the point. But do not worry, not all of them are “playable”.

Do You Actually Have to Play All of Them?

The answer to that question is straightforward: no. If you just want to experience the main adventure, Kingdom Hearts 1, 2, and 3 will still give you the most important information about Sora’s story. The problem is that you will be missing a lot of context. Characters introduced in what were once considered side games have become extremely important to the overall story. The events of the χ games, in particular, have gone from feeling like completely separate ancient history to being a huge part of the series’ current storyline.

And based on everything we have seen from Kingdom Hearts 4 so far, that is not going away.

We have already seen characters such as Strelitzia, references to the Dandelions, and plenty of other connections to the lore. So if you are jumping straight from Kingdom Hearts III into Kingdom Hearts IV without knowing what happened in those games, you are probably going to have a lot of “wait, who is that?” moments.

You Do NOT Have to Play Every Game

There is also a very important distinction here. You do not necessarily need to play every single one of these games yourself. Some of them are incredibly difficult to access today. The older games were released on hardware that most people no longer own, and the mobile games are pretty much gone. Some of the older games are also included inside the compilations of the main games in a “movie” format with just the cutscenes. You cannot simply download the original versions of everything and start playing. And honestly, you do not need to.

For a lot of these games, watching a good compilation of the story and cutscenes on YouTube is perfectly fine as well. You are mainly trying to understand the characters, events, and lore that feed into the modern games. The goal is not to actively have to play through all of them. So even if the list is long, over half of it is just you having to pretty much watch a couple of movies. You could spend hundreds of hours trying to experience everything yourself, or you can watch the relevant cutscenes and story summaries and save yourself a massive amount of time.

Personally, if your goal is simply to be ready for Kingdom Hearts 4, I would absolutely recommend doing a mixture of both.

Play the games that are available and that you really want to experience, then use cutscene movies or story summaries for the older or inaccessible stuff.

Use the Current Steam Sales

The good news is that most of the important games are much easier to access now thanks to the modern PC releases. The Kingdom Hearts collections are currently available on Steam, and they are all reduced. Even better, you can find a Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece that is currently discounted to around €30, and it includes pretty much all the games in one go.

The current offer ends on August 20, so you have only a few days left if you want to grab it at that price. If you are interested in playing through the series yourself, this is probably one of the better times to start. It includes everything from the First game to the 3rd.

So Where Should You Start?

If you have never touched Kingdom Hearts before, do not look at that giant list and immediately give up. Start with Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, then go through the games in the order above. When you reach something difficult or impossible to access, or that has gameplay you are not interested in, watch the story instead. You do not need to understand every single piece of Kingdom Hearts lore before playing Kingdom Hearts 4. Frankly, I am not sure anyone understands every piece of Kingdom Hearts lore.

But if you want to go into Kingdom Hearts 4 knowing who the Dandelions are, why Strelitzia matters, what happened to the various Keyblade wielders, why Quadratum is so important, and how we ended up with Sora stuck in this strange new reality, then the numbered trilogy alone is not going to be enough.

We have more than a year to go before Kingdom Hearts 4 arrives in late 2027. That is plenty of time to get through the madness.

For more information about games, check out our latest news!