Kingdom Hearts Dark Road will reveal important details about the Xehanort Saga, along with some teases for Kingdom Hearts 4.

Kingdom Hearts 3 left us with a lot of questions, and thankfully, we’ll start to see some answers in Kingdom Hearts Union χ spin-off of sorts, Kingdom Hearts Dark Road.

Previously known as Project Xehanort, the first information on what the mobile game Kingdom Hearts Dark Road will be about was revealed via the KHUχ Twitter. Players will be able to access Dark Road within the Union χ app, but Road will be a standalone game that will not require save data from Union χ.

Xehanort has always been a mysterious character, and from what little we actually do know about him, it seems as though he has been orchestrating his plans on crafting the χblade for quite some time. But what was his plan once he was able to access Kingdom Hearts freely? Should Sora not have defeated him, perhaps we would see exactly how Xehanort would go about balancing light and darkness by using the power of Kingdom Hearts.

The first bit of info we received from the Dark Road development team simply states that we will “Uncover Xehanort’s past–“. What that entails is being kept under wraps for good reason. The main drive of the Kingdom Hearts series has been the mystery of who Ansem, then Xemnas, followed by Master Xehanort are. In Kingdom Hearts 2, we learn that Ansem is the Heartless of Master Xehanort’s Terra shell, and that Xemnas is the Nobody. Birth by Sleep introduces us to the Wayfinder trio, and tells the tale of how Master Xehanort and Terra combined to make Terranort.

In Dream Drop Distance, Young Master Xehanort travels through time in an attempt to collect the 13 vessels that would presently do Master Xehanort’s bidding in the creation of the χblade. Now that Sora has both defeated Master Xehanort and closed Kingdom Hearts with the χ-blade, we’re left with one important question: What influence did Master Eraqus’ heart have over Xehanort’s?

We know that the two were close, as they are seen hanging out together both in the beginning of KH3 playing chess, and then again in the recent Kingdom Hearts Dark Road screenshots. We haven’t seen either of them getting along at any length, but we do get some tastes of their relationship in Birth By Sleep. After Xehanort nearly kills Ven in the process of removing the darkness (Vanitas) from Ven’s heart, Eraqus takes in Ven to help the boy grow stronger. Somewhere in between that event and the day of the Mark of Mastery exam for Aqua and Terra, an agreement or acknowledged bond has Eraqus invite Xehanort to the Land of Departure.

The strength of their relationship lies in the murky past of Xehanort’s time travel shenanigans. There was a time where Xehanort grew up on Destiny Islands. While there, he was visited by his future self’s Heartless, who we know as Ansem, Seeker of Darkness. In some sort of weird time loop, Young Master Xehanort was influenced to seek the power of darkness by an alternative version of himself. YMX then traveles through time to ensure the seven lights and 13 darknesses are in place to form (old) Master Xehanort’s χ-blade.

The thing is, YMX soon forgets of his time traveling, meaning there’s a lot of Destiny Islands plot to dig into there. Eventually, YMX obtains enough power to leave Destiny Islands (remember that “kid” that Riku referenced that “went to the outside world”?). How exactly YMX does this, and what role the Master of Masters has in getting YMX to the Scala ad Caelum are all plot elements up for grabs.

It’s important that we see more of how the rift between Eraqus and Xehanort plays out. It’s not enough for us to see the allusion to the conflict in chess scenes. There needs to be more drama leading up to the confrontation that left Eraqus with the scar on his face. Also, we need to see who their Keyblade Master was. In what’s bound to be a shocking reveal, there will surely be a connection to Kingdom Hearts lore here that has been hiding from us all along (let’s just hope he’s not another Roxas clone…).

It is possible that some plot details of who the other person calling themselves Sora is, or even who Yozora is, will be teased in Dark Road? After all, the KH3 Re Mind DLC did just tantalize us with new details about Yozora’s world. Maybe Yozora has a stronger connection to the Master of Masters than we currently know?

The gameplay of Dark Road borrows elements from Chain of Memories and Union χ, as it will be a card-based game with “Exhilarating, high speed battles that depend on reflexes!” The game will release, assumedly for free, within the Kingdom Hearts Union χ app in Spring 2020.