Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX UK Launch Event Recap

On 3rd December 2014, we held the official UK community launch event for Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX in central London. It was a really special event because we were joined by two very special guests – Tai Yasue (Co-director of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX) and Rie Nishi (Producer of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX) who are some of the most important people who work on the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

We had loads of stuff going on at the event so we hope everyone who came had a great time. We made a little recap video (which you can watch below), so if you weren’t able to join us, you can at least see all the cool things we had going on at the event in our special sanctuary. 

I’m going to let you in on a secret. Well it’s not that big a secret because I said this during the launch event presentation but one of the working titles for this community launch event was the Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 ReMIX Khristmas Hootenanny. The K in Khristmas is deliberate by the way so that it’d be abbreviated to KHKH. Also hootenannies are cool. Ok, never mind.

It’s always nice to do these kinds of events because Kingdom Hearts is a series that’s all about connecting hearts and meeting members of the community (and seeing members meet each other) is such a joy. Hosting the event was a real honour for me as well and there wasn’t a frown in sight which is a good thing because this boat runs on happy faces! 

It was actually the first time that both Yasue-san and Nishi-san had ever been to the UK and they were able to come and join us at our launch event because of the love and passion that you guys show for Kingdom Hearts. They were really happy to be able to come out and meet fans face to face because it’s something they rarely get the opportunity to do so they were really grateful. I guess that’s the power of the Keyblade!

We've also got a bunch of behind the scenes photos we wanted to share with you guys - a peek through the keyhole so to speak, so let's take look.

We recreated the famous Twilight Town clock tower balcony from Kingdom Hearts II for fans to take a picture on. It may not look it in the photo above but the whole thing was huge and you’d be surprised how many people could stand on it. We’ve actually put all the photos taken on the balcony up on the official Kingdom Hearts Facebook page so if you haven’t had a chance to take a look, go check them out.

This was really cool. We had a green screen which you could stand in front of and we would film you for about seven seconds. That video recording was then converted into a physical flipbook that you could take away with you. That’s pretty awesome right? We had three backgrounds that fans could choose to be in front of – the Kingdom Hearts II battle of 1000 heartless, the Re:coded Datascape and the Birth by Sleep Keyblade Graveyard.

We had a bunch of super rare and exclusive prizes to give away in our community raffle during the launch presentation. Not sure which of these were the winning tickets though.

Speaking of the launch presentation, here is the area where it was held. The picture above was taken during rehearsals so it’s quiet and calm. It was especially too quiet when I was practicing my jokes….

And here’s the presentation area as people were sitting down and making themselves comfortable. There were about 150 people sat in this picture and you can’t see me as I was waiting in the green room, rocking back and forth as a nervous wreck. Actually, that’s probably a little overly dramatic. Still, I probably would have felt better if I had a Thalassa Shell Wayfinder. 

Here’s our guests of honour being introduced onto the stage! TaiYasue is on the left and Rie Nishi is on the right. They had a lot of fun at the event thanks to you guys.

One of the prizes we gave away in the community raffle was a physical print of the Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX storyboard manga signed by the artist Shiro Amano. Yasue-san and Nishi-san are showing it off in the picture above and you can see it’s pretty big! If you want to read the manga yourself you can find it here. Along with other goodies we gave away, we also debuted the launch trailer and hosted a live Q&A with Yasue-san and Nishi-san.

We can’t forget that after the presentation we also held a signing session so fans could meet Yasue-san and Nishi-san face to face and get a photo or some stuff signed. 

Speaking of signing stuff, at the entrance to the event we had a massive signing wall where we encouraged everyone to sign their name along with a special message. If you look really, really closely you can even see messages from the Kingdom Hearts team in there…. Somewhere.

There were some really touching messages left by our fans. Just goes to show that deep down there really is a light that will never go out.

On behalf of Square Enix Europe and the Kingdom Hearts team, I would like to thank you for your continued support of Kingdom Hearts whether you were at the launch event or just reading about it now.

If you were at the event, then I hope you had a brilliant time and if you laughed at any of my jokes or got all of the references I put into the presentation then you get a personal thank you from me! If you weren’t able to join us, then don’t worry, we’re going to try and do more community events in the future so hopefully you’ll be able to join us then. It really means a lot to us at Square Enix Europe that we have passionate fans who are willing to come to these sorts of events.

The Kingdom Hearts games have a really special power of bringing us all together towards the light. After all we share one sky, one destiny. Right?

Thank you for keeping the light of Kingdom Hearts shining bright.