II.8 Final Chapter Prologue

After making a surprise announcement of it last month, the 'Kingdom Hearts' series has finally been released on Steam, with 'Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5+2.5 HD ReMIX', 'Kingdom Hearts 2.8 HD Final Chapter Prologue', and 'Kingdom Hearts III' (including DLC) now available to download for Steam players:

Additionally, all three collections (purchased under the 'Kingdom Hearts Integrum Masterpiece' package), are available at a discounted price of $68.99 until June 27th:

And to celebrate the Steam release, Square-Enix is holding a Kingdom Hearts/Steam Deck sweepstakes (more information here), with the following prizes up for grabs:

• 1st Place: Tetsuya Nomura Signed Steam Deck OLED 1TB | KINGDOM HEARTS INTEGRUM MASTERPIECE | HiGround Keyboard Selection (Crystal Collection or Topograph Collection) | 1st Choice of KH Merch (See T&Cs for list)

• Key Bearer Status Winner: Steam Deck OLED 1TB | KINGDOM HEARTS INTEGRUM MASTERPIECE | HiGround Keyboard Selection (Crystal Collection or Topograph Collection) | 2nd Choice of KH Merch (See T&Cs for list)

• #KHonSteam Winner(x1-2) - Dependent on Community bonus: Steam Deck OLED 512GB | KINGDOM HEARTS INTEGRUM MASTERPIECE | 3rd/4th Choice of KH Merch (See T&Cs for list)

• General Pool Winner(x3): Steam Deck LCD 256GB (Dependent on Community Bonus) | KINGDOM HEARTS INTEGRUM MASTERPIECE

Lastly, a special message was posted by Hikaru Utada in celebration of the Steam release, discussing the recent re-recording of "Hikari/Simple and Clean":

EDIT:

Here are comments made by Tetsuya Nomura, celebrating the Steam release:

Square-Enix announced earlier today that cloud versions of 'Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX', 'Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue', and Kingdom Hearts III' (with the ReMind DLC) will all be released next month on February 10th! These titles can be purchased individually or by purchasing an all-in-one package called the Integrum Masterpiece. Additionally, those who either purchase the Integrum Masterpiece or 'Kingdom Hearts III' individually will get an exclusive keyblade in 'Kingdom Hearts III' called the Advent Red Keyblade:

Hey everyone! Got another batch of videos for ya.

This time it's Kingdom Hearts 0.2 in 4K! This is the first game in the series that was made with HD/4K in mind, so you'll really notice the difference here: all that fine texture detail looks beautiful. And as a first for us, all real-time cutscenes run at 60 frames per second. Unfortunately this game has a considerable number of pre-rendered scenes so this only applies to about half of them. But it's very exciting dipping our toes into the new world of 60FPS. Maybe we'll see more of that in the future...

To account for double the number of frames, I had to double the bitrate in order to preserve video quality, so just bear in mind these files are going to be on the chonky side.

You can download these gorgeous, silky-smooth cutscenes here:

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -a fragmentary passage- (4K)(60FPS)(No Subtitles)(Music Toggle)

Other features of these videos include:
-Opening movie upscaled to 4K (using Topaz A.I. Gigapixel V3.1.1)
-Credit text from Opening movie removed. Possble thanks to the textless version of the OP that Square Enix uploaded to YouTube. (Can also download the version with text)
-No subtitles
-Dual audio tracks: one standard, and one without background music

Check out our full Cutscene Archive to download scenes from all throughout the series.

More to come, enjoy!

Following the exciting reveal of Sora's addition to 'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate', Square-Enix revealed plans for the 20th anniversary of the series:

As the above video shows:

• Cloud versions of 'Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 HD ReMix', 'Kingsom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue', and 'Kingdom Hearts III' (with the ReMind DLC included) are coming soon to the Nintendo Switch!
• Multiple merchandise to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series!
• The rest of the 'Kingdom Hearts: Dark Road' story (up to the ending!) will be released this winter in one go!
• A Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Event will be taking place! More details to come at a later date.

Out of nowhere, the Epic Games Store announced that the entire Kingdom Hearts series will be coming to PC on March 30, 2021. This appears to be, at least for now, an exclusive deal to EGS. All games are at their original, full retail price, although Kingdom Hearts III comes with ReMind included at no additional cost. KH3 on PC is also getting its own exclusive Keyblade (re-skin), Elemental Encoder. It's unclear if this is a monochrome Keyblade, or they just haven't revealed the color scheme yet.

In addition to introducing the KH series to a whole new market, this will also open up a lot of possibilities for the modding community.

Do you plan on picking any of these up on PC when they arrive next month?