Like many fans of the Kingdom Hearts video game series, I simultaneously laugh and wince at the memes about the long wait for KH III.  The plot line of Kingdom Hearts is infamous for being long and complicated.  While I don’t have enough space to describe more than the bare details, you can find a more in-depth explanation here.  Kingdom Hearts follows the story of Sora, as he battles the darkness that destroyed his home, and tries to find his friends.  Along the way, he meets new friends and visits many Disney Worlds.  It turns out that the master bad guy was after the origin of darkness and light called Kingdom Hearts.  Sora must then battle him to make sure Kingdom Hearts doesn’t fall under his control.

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Kingdom Hearts III was announced in 2013 at the E3 conference.  Since then several Kingdom Hearts games have been released including KH X (chi) and several remixes but no Kingdom Hearts III.

After a long wait, a release date of January 29, 2019 was announced at the 2018 E3 conference.  KH III now has a release date, but for years, fans were left with no information. So why was there a delay?  I've had years to ponder this question and think I have a few ideas.

First, creating video games takes a lot of time and effort.  My dad works for EA, a video game company, and there are many times that the release dates are pushed because of new bugs that need to be fixed or other unexpected delays.  I remember many nights he would stay up until 2:00 AM to fix them before the deadline.  He would then get up at 8:00 AM the next morning and do it all over again.  There were many days he was so tired, he could barely move.  This happened a lot around Christmas because his company wanted to get the game out before the Christmas rush.  During the time I was waiting impatiently for KH III, someone was working hard on it.

Second, Square Enix has a lot of video game series they would rather put on priority.  The one that comes to mind is Final Fantasy.  Specifically, the Final Fantasy 7 remake which received a lot of the personnel who had previously been working on KH III.

Third, the game switched over to a different engine about a year after development started.  This means that the company had to take the hard work they had done for a year and redo all of it.  It reminds me of the time my computer broke during finals week of college and I had to redo a semester's worth of work in a week.  I can only imagine that the engineers were as frustrated as the fans.

Many times the release dates are pushed because of new bugs that need to be fixed or other unexpected delays.

I've been itching for this video game to come out for years.  I get so frustrated that it’s taking so long, but I also understand there are plenty of reasons for delays in video games and any type of software development.  I remember my mom in the mornings telling us we had to be quiet because Dad was working last night instead of sleeping.  I've listened to my Dad vent when things get changed around in a video game and how he gets frustrated too.  I admire how he patiently fixes bugs all day for weeks at a time to make sure a game is enjoyable.  It’s important to remember there are people working hard on the game or software you want.  It’s not their fault it’s taking so long and the game or new technology will probably be better for the wait.

Ashley Tolman is a Junior at Utah State University and hopes to become an author.