For fans of the series, it's still surreal to live in a world post-Kingdom Hearts III, after many years of waiting for the title to release. The game's original ending left several questions, as did the ending of the DLC expansion, ReMind. Like the base game, ReMind has secrets for players to unlock -- including a hidden ending.
Here's how to unlock the secret ending in ReMind and what it means.
Unlock the Secret Ending
To access the ReMind DLC, players simply need to complete the main game and purchase the new content. Upon completing this expansion to the game's climactic keyblade war, the main title screen displays another new option, the Limitcut Episode.
Here, players will meet a few of the familiar Final Fantasy faces seen in previous Kingdom Hearts games, as they figure how to save Sora from an uncertain fate. It won't be easy, though, as doing so requires entering a virtual world to best all the members of the True Organization XIII. Each one requires different strategies to beat and will push players' skills to the limit.
If these battles prove to be too hard and players just want to see where the story goes, the DLC includes a cheat system of sorts, though using it requires starting a file from the very beginning. The Premium Menu includes EZ Codes, which, among other options, allow players to take down enemies in a single strike.
No matter which path players take, completing this gauntlet of battles presents them with yet another new option: The Secret Episode. This cuts straight to the chase, as Sora finds himself in a one-on-one fight with a surprising face: Yozora, the in-universe "Verum Rex" character seen both at the beginning of the Toy Story level and in Kingdom Hearts III's secret ending.
Regardless of whether players win or lose this fight, they'll see an ending for each result that teases what could be in the series' future, so it's worth it to try both possibilities.
What it Means
KH III ends with Master Xehanort's final defeat and saving Kairi with the use of the x-blade, though the ordeal leaves Sora fading away. From there, players learn the Xigbar they thought they knew is actually the mysterious Luxu, last seen in the mobile game Kingdom Hearts: Union X. The secret ending reveals Sora isn't gone for good, after all.
As if things aren't complicated enough, the two endings after the Secret Episode take things even further. Regardless whether Sora or Yozora emerges victorious, the latter wakes up as he rides in the back seat of a rather fancy car, quoting Sora's very first line in the series: "I've been having these weird thoughts lately, like is any of this for real or not?"
This implies Yozora's involvement was some sort of dream. Kingdom Hearts indeed dropped Sora into a literal dream world before and the realm of sleep neighbors the afterlife itself, as Sora learns when he visits The Final World in the main story. The path to saving this spiky-haired hero might just involve taking a good nap.
Another popular theory is tied to The World Ends With You. The then-deceased cast had to survive a "Game" in order to return to the living world. Considering Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance included those characters participating in the Game, and the fact that KH III's secret ending included the title's 104 building (based on the real world Shibuya 109), there could be some connection to the stylish RPG.
One more possibility is that the KH saga could start incorporating elements of Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which changed drastically as it eventually became Final Fantasy XV. The "Verum Rex" scene and the one following the Secret Episode's ending in ReMind both bear similarities to trailers for Versus XIII during its development, leaving many to wonder if director Tetsuya Nomura is recycling ideas from his involvement with the Final Fantasy spin-off.