Last month’s Nintendo Direct was full of all types of treats for Kingdom Hearts fans, including the announcement that native versions of the entire Kingdom Hearts trilogy will be coming to Switch 2 via the release of The Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III]. Unfortunately, players did not respond well to the trilogy’s key art, which Square Enix shared on X shortly after the announcement. Players quickly noticed several strange details in the image, and accused Square Enix of using generative AI to create it.
GameSpot immediately reached out for comment, and over a month later, Square Enix and Disney decided to clear things up. According to a statement shared exclusively with GameSpot, The Kingdom Hearts Collection [I-III] art is not the result of AI.
“We’re aware of feedback regarding recent Kingdom Hearts visuals,” reads the statement, which was shared via phone call with a Square Enix PR rep. “These assets were created by our development team without the use of generative AI, and the issues resulted from human error.”
Some of the “issues” being referenced here include Donald Duck having 4 fingers on one hand and 5 on the other, the hands on the clocktower appearing warped, the Keyblade’s keychain links appearing uneven, Sora’s crown-shaped belt chain links melting into each other, the absence of the crown-shaped pattern usually seen on the bottom of Sora’s shoes, and various clothing zippers seeming to fade into nothing, among other issues.
“Quality is extremely important to us, and updated assets have been implemented where appropriate,” the statement continued.
The X post that started it all is still up, but elsewhere online, the image has been replaced with a new version. (The official trailer’s YouTube thumbnail features a third version of the image, in which Donald’s five-fingered hand is simply obscured.) The new image still features many of the strange details players pointed out in the original key art, including the warped crowns on Sora’s belt chain, the lack of crowns on his shoe soles, and and the strange links on Mickey’s Keyblade keychain. The clocktower’s hands look a bit straighter, but for the most part, it appears the main goal was correcting Donald Duck’s five-fingered hand, which now features the correct four digits.
Disney and Square Enix did not provide any commentary as to how the original image came to be. Disney is known to be incredibly protective of its characters and how they are represented, presenting artists with strict guides on how to draw them. So it’s hard to imagine how an image of a nine-fingered Donald Duck managed to come into existence to begin with, let alone how it slipped past every entity who had to approve it.
