Published 3 hours ago

And there’s nothing artificial about his intelligence

Image: Square Enix

Sign in to your Polygon account

The Walt Disney Corporation just made a $1 billion investment into Sora, OpenAI’s platform for generating short-form videos. If you’ve seen Bigfoot shilling out to promote random products on TikTok, or even clips of street cats playing various instruments on that poor woman’s porch, those were likely created using Sora or a similar generative AI tool. You type a prompt, maybe even an entire script, and Sora creates the video.

As part of the deal, starting sometime early in 2026, Sora AI users will be able to generate videos featuring more than 200 characters from Disney’s extensive portfolio (presumably with some heavy guardrails in place). But I don’t want to see Iron Man and the Mandalorian armwrestling. I don’t want to see Moana and Mirabel singing “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” while Baymax cradles Stitch in his arms like he’s a baby in the background.

Image: Square Enix

Instead, I want to see Disney make big investments in a different Sora, the protagonist from the Kingdom Hearts video game series. Rides, 3D experiences at theme parks, slot machines, cameos in movies, and above all, more video games. If you’re worried that 37-year-old actor Haley Joel Osment has aged out of voicing the character, well, don’t be, he once told me that he’s eager to return to the franchise and loves fielding questions about it.

What’s so great about Sora anyway? He’s a total goofball with a heart of gold. He’s best friends with Goofy and Donald Duck. He’s the glue that holds the oftentimes incomprehensible Kingdom Hearts games together as they aggressively blend numerous Disney characters and worlds with Final Fantasy complexity and weirdness. In Kingdom Hearts, the Darkness is a literal malevolent force that corrupts people’s hearts and also manifests as all sorts of shadow creatures, but there’s nothing all that similar for the Light. There’s just Sora.

Of the nine or so Keylbade wielders in this photo, Sora may be the worst. But what makes him the real hero isn’t about his sword skills.Image: Square Enix

The games also make it clear that, of all the characters who wield Keyblades (magical weapons that resemble keys that combat Darkness and unlock or seal doors between worlds), Sora is one of the worst. But his optimism, sincerity, bravery, and goofy friendliness make him a secret weapon in a universe where the connections between people’s hearts generate the light and hope needed to keep the darkness at bay. In short, he represents the highest ideals of a Disney hero.

Sure, the rights and licensing are messy. Sora was created by Tetsuya Nomura, so Square Enix owns all the original Kingdom Hearts characters and the core IP, including Sora. Meanwhile, Disney licenses its characters and worlds to Square Enix for use in the game. Then again, Disney has found creative financial solutions to similar problems before. This isn’t to say Disney should try to buy Square Enix, but a targeted investment supporting one of the companies’ development arms could be mutually beneficial.

Rather than invest in generative AI videos, Disney should invest in Sora and Kingdom Hearts. It’s been five years since the last mainline game in the series was released. Since then, there’s only been the overly simplistic mobile prequel Dark Road and the rhythm action game Melody of Memory. Development remains ongoing for Kingdom Hearts 4, though we likely won’t see it until 2027. There’s a serious void here, and Disney could be the missing link — especially since earlier this year, Square Enix canceled the mobile game Kingdom Hearts Missing-Link, which would have helped bridge the gap between Kingdom Hearts 3 and 4.

Believe it or not, Nintendo has invested more in Sora over the last five years than anybody else. He was added as the last fighter to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in 2021, and he’s a strong combatant there!

Rapunzel and Sora share a charming dance in Kingdom Hearts 3Image: Square Enix

Disney should be more generous with what the series can use, particularly because of the episodic nature of the core Kingdom Hearts games, where Sora flies a goofy spaceship made of blocks through the cosmos to reach new Disney worlds. The only thing stopping Sora from fighting Thor and wielding a Mjolnir Keyblade, or donning Jedi robes to get a Lightsaber Keyblade, is Disney. The developers wouldn’t even need to make another huge game and release it all at once. Instead, they could push out a steady stream of individual worlds with even smaller mini-games in between. It’s a novel approach, but one that’s tailor-made for a series like this.

And in case you still don’t think Sora’s worth it, remember that in Kingdom Hearts 3, he had better chemistry with Rapunzel than Flynn Rider, who canonically marries her at the end of Tangled. Let that sink in.