Games · 12 events
Kingdom Hearts chronology and timeline
The chronology does not start with the game called Kingdom Hearts. This timeline sets χ, Birth by Sleep and the 2002 disc on the same spine.
The 1 is not the 1
The Kingdom Hearts timeline is the contrast between those two clocks. The chronology of the worlds starts with the Keyblade War; the shop starts in 2002. Kingdom Hearts shipped that year and, in the story, happens after Birth by Sleep, after a stretch of χ, after a war a PlayStation 2 player never saw. Square Enix numbered the boxes by arrival in the shop. The work numbered them by light and dark.
358/2 Days sits in the same gap as Chain of Memories. Coded is an electronic epilogue to Kingdom Hearts 2. Dream Drop Distance is the invitation to 3. Line up by numbers alone and whole worlds drop out.
Cut
Main-story games through Melody of Memory ship. Mobile that still moves canon (Dark Road, Missing-Link) is cited in the origins group when the point is already stable. Remixes occupy the same point as the original.
Story order
Before Sora
The Keyblade War, Scala ad Caelum, Terra, Ventus and Aqua.
Kingdom Hearts χ / Union χ
Release: 2013–2021 (mobile) · Back Cover 2017
Long before Sora. The Keyblade War, the Unions, the Book of Prophecies. A 2002 player had no floor for this. The 2013 mobile built it slowly, and Back Cover (a 2017 cinematic) condensed the start.
In the shop, χ is one of the last to arrive. In the story it is the first brick.
Kingdom Hearts Dark Road
Release: 22 Jun 2020
Xehanort’s youth in Scala ad Caelum. It explains the man Birth by Sleep already hands you old. It shipped in 2020 on phones, almost two decades after the first game.
On the spine it glues to χ. On the shelf it is a note for anyone who had already seen 3.
Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
Release: 9 Jan 2010 (PSP, Japan)
Ten years before the first Kingdom Hearts. Terra, Ventus and Aqua. The armour on the reef Sora will find without understanding. It shipped in 2010 on PSP, eight years after 1.
It is the prequel the series most needs: without it, the Xehanort of 1 is only a scientist in a coat. With it, the coat has a childhood.
Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep — A Fragmentary Passage
Release: 12 Jan 2017 (2.8)
Aqua in the Realm of Darkness, after Birth by Sleep, before 3. It came in the 2.8 pack in 2017. In the story it is the bridge. In the shop, a three-hour extra in the middle of an HD set.
Sora, the islands, the Organization
From the first Kingdom Hearts to the second, including the days the 1 never showed.
Kingdom Hearts
Release: 28 Mar 2002 (PlayStation 2, Japan)
Destiny Islands, Disney worlds, Hollow Bastion, the Heartless. 28 March 2002 in Japan. In the shop it is the start. In the story Sora walks into a fight Terra, Ventus and Aqua already lost.
Final Mix adds scenes; it does not move the place on the ruler.
Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories
Release: 11 Nov 2004 (GBA, Japan)
Castle Oblivion, right after 1. Sora climbs floors; Riku goes down. Cards on GBA in 2004, then Re:Chain on PS2.
In the story it is the next day. In the shop, the second disc, still honest with the number.
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
Release: 30 May 2009 (Nintendo DS, Japan)
Roxas’s three hundred and fifty-eight days in Organization XIII, parallel to Chain of Memories. Nintendo DS in 2009. In the story it fills the gap 2 only shows in a prologue. In the shop it arrives after 2 — anyone who played 2005 met Roxas without knowing Xion.
Kingdom Hearts 2
Release: 22 Dec 2005 (PlayStation 2, Japan)
Roxas at twilight, Sora back, the Organization at the end. 22 December 2005. In the shop it is the third big disc. In the story it only closes if Days and Chain of Memories already took the middle.
Skip from 1 to 2 and you follow the action and lose Roxas’s year.
The waking and 3
Coded, two nights of sleep, Scala again, Melody.
Kingdom Hearts Coded / Re:coded
Release: 2008 (mobile) · 7 Oct 2010 (Re:coded, DS)
A digital Jiminy Cricket, data from the first game, a debug Sora. Mobile in 2008, DS in 2010. An electronic epilogue to KH2 that points at 3. Plenty of people skip it. The line keeps it because the “we have already met” note is born here.
Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
Release: 29 Mar 2012 (Nintendo 3DS, Japan)
Sora and Riku in the Mark of Mastery, two sleeps, Quadratum on the horizon. 3DS in 2012. It is the explicit invitation to 3. In the shop, the seventh chapter. In the story, the last big block before Scala.
Kingdom Hearts 3
Release: 25 Jan 2019 (Japan) / 29 Jan 2019
29 January 2019. Scala, the War again, the end of this form of Xehanort. It arrived seventeen years after 1. In the story it is the close of the arc Birth by Sleep started. In the shop, the number the public had waited for since 2005.
Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory
Release: 11 Nov 2020
Kairi in a data coma, the note that Sora went the other way. 2020. Rhythm and epilogue. On the spine it is the comma after 3, not a new world. In the shop, the first disc after the number everyone wanted.
See also the timeline index and games.