Later this month, the long-awaited sequel to The World Ends With You will finally drop, bringing with it a whole host of characters and storylines to tackle. Fans have been waiting for NEO: The World Ends With You since TWEWY -Solo Remix- released for iOS in 2012 with a secret teaser image. It's no wonder fans are in such a frenzy; not only is that a long time to sit with an enigmatic teaser for a sequel to a niche game, but the 2018 Final Remix release for Switch stoked the flames with an extended epilogue that all-but confirmed a sequel was on it's way. Now, three years later in both the game world and the real world, NEO: TWEWY looks to give loyal fans what they want.

However, that's not the only fanbase that should be paying attention to this release. The World Ends With You shares a lot of key staff with Kingdom Hearts, so much so that NEO couldn't properly begin development until TWEWY Final Remix was done and the Xehanort saga was nearing completion in late 2018. Due to that, and because NEO: TWEWY has made the jump to full 3D gameplay, it has a good chance of feeling like an honorary Kingdom Hearts game. KH fans are going to want to get used to thinking that, because there's potentially a lot to learn about the next Kingdom Hearts game from NEO.

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Like many Japanese games, NEO: The World Ends With You takes place in a fictionalized version of the real city of Shibuya. This is marked by the 104 building, Square Enix’s own version of the famous 109 building overlooking the Shibuya Crossing. For reasons yet unknown, this fictional 104 building, surrounded by what seems to be Shibuya’s modern stylings, was also teased as the location for the next major Kingdom Hearts game. A secret movie can be unlocked at the end of KH3 depicting Sora, Riku, the Master of Masters, and Yozora wandering through one or two parallel versions of Shibuya, complete with the 104 building sitting by its major intersection.

It appears that Quadratum, the “world of fiction” discussed at the end of Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory, contains at least one imitation of Shibuya, which, in the context of the Square Enix and Disney crossover that is Kingdom Hearts, immediately brings TWEWY to mind. The first TWEWY’s party served as the NPCs for Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance’s rendition of Traverse Town. It’s possible that they could appear somewhere in Quadratum, but it feels more likely that the NEO cast will get their chance to shine. These versions wouldn’t be the same as those in their home series, but as Neku’s crew are refugees from a destroyed world in KH and there’s a mystery regarding the destruction of Shinjuku in TWEWY, there could still be parallels.

One of those parallels may be TWEWY’s famous Reaper’s Game. This “game” is a life-or-death struggle set in an afterlife parallel to the real world — so close, in fact, that the two can affect each other. Players complete challenges and sometimes compete with one another (it depends on how a region’s Reapers do things) to make it through a week, at which point they can have a wish granted and be returned to life. There’s a lot of other fine details that are best appreciated by playing the TWEWY games or watching the recent anime, but that’s the gist.

It seems like Yozora and Riku are going to be performing something similar to this in the next Kingdom Hearts. Sora is essentially dead after saving Kairi’s life in Kingdom Hearts 3, but ReMind implies that some part of him is sealed inside Quadratum. The forces of light will need to go up against a new villain faction, which will likely be headed by the Foretellers and Master of Masters. The parallels to the conflict between the Game’s Players and Reapers for the promise of life are pretty clear, though it might not be so cut-and-dry in context. Whatever the case, mainline Kingdom Hearts director and The World Ends With You creative producer Tetsuya Nomura loves to connect pieces of information across games, so KH fans will want to pay attention to NEO: TWEWY for any juicy KH clues.

NEO: The World Ends With You will release on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 on July 27, 2021. The game will release on PC later in summer 2021.

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