While Square Enix's popular Kingdom Hearts franchise has blended Disney's various properties, including its animated films, properties from Pixar Studios and live-action films such as Tron and Pirates of the Caribbean, it has not yet included properties from Disney subsidiaries Marvel or Lucasfilm.

In a translated interview from Kingdom Hearts III Ultimania, the official companion book to the game, director Tetsuya Nomura explained why properties from the two companies are absent from the game and how Square Enix had to compromise just to include Disney flagship character Mickey Mouse in the first game.

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"In order to adapt those [properties] into a game, contracts must be made with each company separately, and there are cases where other game companies already have contracts, so although the Disney Group has indeed added those [properties], incorporating them into Kingdom Hearts isn't so simple," Nomura explained. "That's also the reason Mickey is in only one scene in [the original] Kingdom Hearts. At the same time, another company was releasing [Epic Mickey], so though we were denied his usage, we persisted and eventually got 'as long as you only have one scene, from far away, as a silhouette, with him waving his hand or something.' Since we had to make the best of the biggest [and only] chance we had, that's why that scene appears that way."

While there are currently no plans by Square to develop another game in the franchise, hope remains that the Marvel superheroes and Star Wars' galaxy far, far away may someday appear in the game universe.

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Kingdom Hearts III is developed by Square Enix. It is on sale now for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

via KH13.com