Kingdom Hearts Union χ Dark Road has seemingly been delisted from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store with little fanfare, leaving fans on Reddit to question its disappearance. Notably, this version of Union χ Dark Road was an “offline” variant of the original game that functioned largely as a cutscene viewer, illuminating the darker parts of Kingdom Hearts lore for players looking to deep dive into its complex story.
While a spin-off being delisted shouldn’t cause too much drama, Union χ Dark Road isn’t just any old spin-off. This game has direct ties to Kingdom Hearts 3 and the long-gestating Kingdom Hearts 4, with key characters from Union χ Dark Road appearing in the mainline games.
Strelitzia, who appears in the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer, actually first debuted in Union χ, and essential parts of her story are told in this adventure. For a brief rundown, she is a keyblade wielder and later somehow winds up in an “afterworld” realm called Quadratum, which features in KH4.
To discover this lore, players could previously jump into Union χ Dark Road and watch cutscenes that evolved her story. But now, the game is seemingly delisted – and so, Strelitzia’s story is more complicated to discover.
Read: The Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer has revealed major gameplay hints
Some have speculated this delisting could mean Kingdom Hearts Union χ Dark Road will appear in another form – potentially as a remastered or restored action game (it would certainly go well on the Nintendo Switch). Others have speculated its delisting could mean new Kingdom Hearts mobile spin-off Missing Link is getting closer to release.
Missing Link has been in testing phase for some time, but there has been no official announcements about progress, or what’s next for the upcoming game. It would make sense that it would be heading for release, but there has been no firm news either way.
It’s fairly strange that no official word preceded the delisting of Kingdom Hearts Union χ Dark Road. While Square Enix had previously announced the end of service for its live portions, it had not confirmed the timing of this game’s seemingly permanent delisting.
At this stage, it’s best to stay patient and wait for official word, as Square Enix provides a potential update to this strange situation. In the meantime, much of Kingdom Hearts Union χ Dark Road has been preserved on YouTube, so you can still view some of the most important cutscenes from the game, at least.
