Kingdom Hearts in Order

For a first playthrough, release order is safest: start with Kingdom Hearts (2002) and let the spin-offs fill in backstory. Lore fans prefer story (chronological) order, beginning with the Back Cover cinematic and Birth by Sleep, though it spoils a few early mysteries.

Kingdom Hearts (2002), the one that started it. In the modern collections you launch it as Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, the expanded Japanese edition, and it is the first thing inside Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX, so that single purchase both gets you started and covers five more of the entries on this list. Two tempting wrong starts: Birth by Sleep is the earliest playable game on the timeline but names Master Xehanort and introduces Terra, Aqua and Ventus long before the 2002 game asks those questions, and Kingdom Hearts III assumes you have played everything before it.

This guide covers 12 entries: the 10 chapters of the Dark Seeker saga, from Kingdom Hearts (2002) to Kingdom Hearts III (2019), plus Re:Chain of Memories, the 2007 remake that is the only version of Chain of Memories in the modern collections, and Melody of Memory (2020), a rhythm game whose ending is the canon epilogue that bridges into the next saga. Note that two of them are not playable in the collections: 358/2 Days and Re:coded are cinematic retellings there, and only the DS cartridges have the actual games.

Release order on a first run, chronological order on a replay. The trade is concrete rather than a matter of taste. Chronological order opens with the Back Cover movie and Birth by Sleep, which introduce the Foretellers, the Keyblade War, Master Xehanort and the trio of Terra, Aqua and Ventus, and that is precisely the material the 2002 game is built to keep mysterious. It reads as a reward the second time through and as a spoiler the first. Both orders agree on one thing: Chain of Memories belongs between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II, and that is the placement that actually matters.

The entry most people skip is the one you should not. Chain of Memories sits between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II and covers Castle Oblivion and the arrival of Organization XIII; skip it and Kingdom Hearts II opens with Sora asleep in a pod for reasons the sequel never stops to explain. The two that come closest to optional are 358/2 Days and Re:coded, and the collections have already made that call for you: both appear there as HD cutscene movies rather than playable games, so you watch them instead of playing them. Of the two, 358/2 Days carries more weight, because it is where Roxas and Xion come from. Melody of Memory is the only entry you can treat as genuinely optional gameplay, but watch its ending, which is canon and leads into Kingdom Hearts IV.

No, and for the most part you no longer can. Kingdom Hearts Union Cross and Kingdom Hearts Dark Road ended online service in June 2021, returned in August 2022 as a single offline app with a story theater mode, and that app was delisted from the app stores in August 2024. Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, the mobile game meant to bridge Kingdom Hearts III and Kingdom Hearts IV, was cancelled in May 2025 after more than a year of closed beta tests, with Square Enix saying it was hard at work on Kingdom Hearts IV instead. None of it is required. The mobile-era lore the console games actually lean on is the Foretellers and the Keyblade War, and the Back Cover movie inside HD 2.8 covers that.

Three bundles cover the whole saga except Melody of Memory. Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX holds four playable games, Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, Re:Chain of Memories, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix and Birth by Sleep Final Mix, plus HD cutscene movies for 358/2 Days and Re:coded. Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue holds Dream Drop Distance HD, the short Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep A Fragmentary Passage, and the Back Cover movie. Kingdom Hearts III is sold with its Re Mind DLC. On Steam the three are bundled as KINGDOM HEARTS INTEGRUM MASTERPIECE, and from October 8, 2026 the console and Microsoft Store equivalent is KINGDOM HEARTS Collection [I~III]. Melody of Memory is in none of them.

Re:Chain of Memories, the 2007 PlayStation 2 remake with 3D battles, voice acting and new cutscenes. It is the version inside HD 1.5 ReMIX and every collection since, and the 2004 Game Boy Advance original has never been re-released, so the remake is the only version on sale today. That is why it is listed as its own step here.

Three purchases cover everything except Melody of Memory. HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX and HD 2.8 have been on PS4 since 2017 and on Xbox One since February 18, 2020, Kingdom Hearts III has been on PS4 and Xbox One since 2019, and all three reached PC on the Epic Games Store in March 2021 and Steam on June 13, 2024; the PS4 and Xbox One versions also run on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S through backward compatibility. Native current-generation versions land on October 8, 2026 for Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Windows via the Microsoft Store, sold individually or as KINGDOM HEARTS Collection [I~III], and HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX gets a native original-Switch release the same day. Melody of Memory is the exception: PS4, Xbox One and Switch, and on PC only through the Epic Games Store, not Steam as of August 2026.

The old Switch versions were cloud versions, streamed rather than installed, and Square Enix pulled all four from sale on June 9, 2026. If you already own them they keep working until June 9, 2027, after which they stop. The replacements arrive October 8, 2026: native Switch 2 versions of all three collections, plus a native release of HD 1.5 + 2.5 ReMIX on the original Switch. Cloud owners get 50 percent off the digital native versions and can transfer their save data to the Switch 2 digital versions, though that discount does not apply to the physical Switch 2 edition of the Collection, which is a Game-Key Card rather than a full cartridge.

Not originally. Re Mind is paid DLC, released January 23, 2020 on PS4, February 25, 2020 on Xbox One and later on PC, and it adds the Re Mind scenario, the Limitcut Episode and the Secret Episode. It is bundled into Kingdom Hearts III in the October 2026 re-releases, so anyone buying the game now gets it included.

No. Kingdom Hearts III ended an arc, not the series. It closed the Dark Seeker saga, the Xehanort story running since 2002, and the Limitcut Episode in Re Mind settled its last fights, while the Secret Episode pointed at what comes next. Melody of Memory then set up what comes next: Riku opens a portal into a world called Quadratum to search for the missing Sora, while Kairi stays behind to train under Aqua. Kingdom Hearts IV begins the second phase, the Lost Master arc, and has not been released.

There is still no release date or window. Kingdom Hearts IV was announced in April 2022 at the series' 20th anniversary event, and the trailer at the June 9, 2026 Nintendo Direct confirmed a simultaneous launch on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store and Xbox on PC. It opens the Lost Master arc and introduces Quadratum, a city modelled on Tokyo that acts as the hub world you return to between Disney worlds. Square Enix has not said when it arrives.