Kingdom Hearts Almost Inspired Disney to Make Its Own Super Smash Bros. Game

Kingdom Hearts is a Final Fantasy x Disney crossover that sounds like it shouldn’t work on paper, but after 25 years has become a $1 billion franchise. Although Disney initially had little faith in the project, after the first game in 2002 became a success, the company tossed around the idea of doing more Disney crossovers, even a fighting game à la Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros.

Disney Interactive’s former concept artist Ken Christiansen, who also worked on Kingdom Hearts, noted in a recent interview that working on the game presented a number of challenges with those in charge at Disney.

“One of the reasons Kingdom Hearts was so difficult to get started was because Disney was so reluctant to have that possibility of crossing over The Lion King into The Little Mermaid world,” he told Time Extension. “That was the main hang-up for Disney America. They couldn’t get over that.”

However, once Kingdom Hearts became one of the PlayStation 2’s best-selling titles, the successful foray into crossovers made the company open up to different possibilities. 

Instead of Trophies, The Characters Were Action Figures

Once Kingdom Hearts was able to “break that mold,” Christiansen noted, producers began to talk about the possibility of a Disney fighting game. The title of that concept was “Disney’s Action Figure Face Off,” according to Christiansen. Although a lot of projects were pitched at this time, not many, including “Disney’s Action Figure Face Off,” made it off the ground. Instead, Disney decided to focus on sure-fire titles, like concepts for television or film tie-ins. However, remnants of “Disney’s Action Figure Face Off” can be found in titles like Disney Infinity, a sandbox toys-to-life game developed by Avalanche Software initially in 2013.

Although there’s little to no evidence of a “Disney’s Action Figure Face-Off” existing, a few LinkedIn profiles from former Activision employees, such as software engineer Peter Walsh and associate producer Lara Sweeney, suggest Activision was behind the project. It’s unknown conclusively which platform a title like “Disney’s Action Figure Face-Off” would have appeared on and it’s hard to imagine the title would have lived up to a Super Smash Bros. in any of its installments throughout its history. Whether it’s the icons of Sony’s PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, the characters from Warner’s MultiVersus or Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, none of these clones can match up to the synergy and polished mechanics of a Super Smash Bros. game.

Even the likes of Mickey Mouse and Woody wouldn’t necessarily have the same staying power because their identities weren’t built around video games, making the transition into a fighting-game crossover less seamless than it is for Nintendo’s roster. Secondly, the original Super Smash Bros. was a passion project from creator Masahiro Sakurai, to the point that he hid his true intentions of creating a 4-player fighter based on Nintendo characters from his bosses until he was able to polish gameplay. As opposed to now, where Warner Bros., Paramount, and Sony are looking to fill a void created by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that it could never fill without a passionate developer at the helm. It’s likely Disney would have tried to chase this dragon as well, if not fail trying to compete with it. It’s best Disney allow Sora to join the ranks of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate rather than compete with it outright, and strengthen the brand of Kingdom Hearts, an already successful crossover title instead.