The series can be a bit daunting to new players wondering just how long it takes to beat Kingdom Hearts. Despite having a reputation for being convoluted, the franchise is actually straightforward to play through, and some games can be experienced through cutscene movies rather than the full package.
Updated November 15, 2022 by Mark Sammut: Sony is adding most of the Kingdom Hearts games to PS Plus Extra, making it as simple as possible for PlayStation 5 and 4 owners to jump into Square Enix and Disney’s beloved franchise. Debuting in 2002, the series has produced more than 10 console entries over the last two decades; consequently, players seeking to soak in everything that Kingdom Hearts has to offer will need to invest a lot of time.
The Kingdom Hearts Games By Numbers
Focusing on the vanilla console releases, there are 11 Kingdom Hearts games, along with the Re:Mind DLC. However, Square Enix has released updated versions for quite a few entries that add content, streamline the campaign, or adapt the experience for other platforms. More importantly, these iterations are usually the ones included in compilations.
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Furthermore, some titles in the franchise are not included in game form in Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 Remix, and these collections are more likely to be picked up by newcomers to the series than the original releases. 358/2 Days and Re:Coded were both Nintendo DS titles that were remastered as cutscene movies for the remixes. As both games are still worth playing separately, their DS playtimes will be included in the following table detailing the length of every Kingdom Hearts game.
Other Kingdom Hearts Content
In addition to the games, there is also the movie Kingdom Hearts X: Back Cover, which is only an hour long. It revolves around the Foretellers and the story is elaborated upon in Kingdom Hearts Union X. In regard to KHUX and Dark Road, both mobile games contained within the same app, the online service has already been discontinued. The app will still be downloadable in order to experience the story. Dark Road’s cutscenes lead up to about an hour of story content. KHUX is harder to nail down numbers for, but cutscenes lead to about eight hours of actual main story content.
Taking the base versions of each console entry and DLC, the main story of Kingdom Hearts leads to 219 hours of playtime, while completionists have about 560 hours of playtime ahead of them. If a newcomer to the franchise is planning to play through all the Kingdom Hearts games available on PS Plus Extra, they will have the following releases at their disposal:
Kingdom Hearts HD 1. 5 Remix: Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, Re:Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days (HD Remastered Cinematics – 3 Hours) Kingdom Hearts HD 2. 5 ReMIX: Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, Birth by Sleep Final Mix, Re:coded (HD Remastered Cinematics – 3 Hours) Kingdom Hearts HD 2. 8 Final Chapter Prologue: Dream Drop Distance HD, Birth by Sleep – A Fragmentary Passage, Kingdom Hearts x Back Cover Kingdom Hearts 3 Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory
Playing through this selection’s main story should take roughly 172 hours, while a completionist playthrough would require about 480 hours.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is currently in development.
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