The best sequence to play the Kingdom Hearts games

Figuring out how to play the Kingdom Hearts games in order can be confusing for new and old players alike. Well-known for being one of the most daunting gaming franchises out there in terms of chronology, working out whether to play them in order or by release date can leave you feeling overwhelmed. 

With the first title having been released in 2002, there are a lot of games to keep track of, with a lot going on in each one. From Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep 0.2: A Fragmentary Passage, to Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance, or if you’re simply a stickler for Kingdom Hearts – working out the linearity of the complex storyline is quite a challenge.

After Sora was unveiled as the final Super Smash Bros Ultimate fighter, and with the whole series ported to the Nintendo Switch, we expect there may be several new fans eager to take on the series.

If you’re looking for advice on what order to play the Kingdom Hearts games in, you’ve come to the right place. We will walk you through both the chronological and release orders, giving you our suggestions on which path to take as you embark on the series.

All Kingdom Hearts games in order

HOW TO PLAY ALL KINGDOM HEARTS GAMES IN ORDER: PLATFORMS YOU WILL NEED

Before we explain how to play the Kingdom Hearts games in order, you’ll first need to know the equipment you will need if you actually want to play them at all. 

It’s hard to think of any other series that has managed to span a stranger series of consoles over the past 20 years than Kingdom Hearts, so gathering everything you need has been tough in the past.

Thankfully, for the most part, you can rely on the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix, 2.5 Remix, 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue to cover almost all of the older games – as these collections combine nine adventures into three simple packages on Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. 

On top of that, you’ll also need console games Kingdom Hearts 3 and Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memories, as well as the mobile games Kingdom Hearts Union X and Kingdom Hearts Dark Road to round out the list.

However, with this method, you won’t actually be able to ‘play’ every Kingdom Hearts game. In the 1.5 and 2.5 Remixes, the Nintendo DS games Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded feature as cinematic cutscene-only experiences that just recap the story of the games. 

Additionally, some titles such as Kingdom Hearts Union X and Kingdom Hearts Dark Road are no longer playable because their online servers have been shut down. However, offline story-only versions of the games will still let you experience the stories – with Dark Road adding its final chapter later this year. You can also experience a very short segment of the Union X story in the X Back Cover cinematic.

Lastly, before we kick off we’ll be omitting games like Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix and 2.5 Remix from the lists below as these aren’t really their own games but a collection of the others. 

HOW TO PLAY THE KINGDOM HEARTS GAMES IN ORDER: CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

If you want to play the Kingdom Hearts series in its full chronological order this is the list you need. It takes you from the series’ earliest moments – depicting the great Keyblade War that reshaped the entire universe into what we see in later games – all the way through to the end of the Dark Seeker Saga – which concluded in Kingdom Hearts 3.

Multiple games in the series have been re-released on other platforms and renamed too. As these titles tell identical (or nearly identical) stories set at exactly the same time we’ve grouped them together under the same entry.

The chronological order is pretty different from the games’ release order, and with how the story is told you might find that structure easier to follow. You can find the release order list further down.

• Kingdom Hearts X / X Back Cover / Unchained X / Union X 
• Kingdom Hearts Dark Road 
• Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep / Final Mix
• Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep 0.2: A Fragmentary Passage 
• Kingdom Hearts / Final Mix
• Kingdom Hearts Chain of memories / Re: Chain of Memories
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days 
• Kingdom Hearts 2 / Final Mix
• Kingdom Hearts Coded / Re: Coded 
• Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance 
• Kingdom Hearts 3 
• Kingdom Hearts 3: ReMind DLC 
• Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory 

HOW TO PLAY THE KINGDOM HEARTS GAMES IN ORDER: RELEASE ORDER

If you want to know how to play the Kingdom Hearts games in release order this is it. However, you might struggle to play some games now as they’re stuck on old hardware – such as the GameBoy Advance exclusive Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories – while other games have had their online servers shut down – such as Kingdom Hearts Union X.

We’ve also not combined remakes here; so, for example, you’ll see games like Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories – which are effectively the same game albeit with a change from 2D to 3D graphics – listed as different entries as they were released at different times on different platforms.

Next to each entry, we’ve also included the year it was released and its original platform(s).

• Kingdom Hearts (2002) (PS2)
• Kingdom Hearts Final Mix (2002) (PS2)
• Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories (2004) (GameBoy Advance)
• Kingdom Hearts 2 (2005) (PS2)
• Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix (2005) (PS2)
• Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories (2007) (PS2)
• Kingdom Hearts Coded (2008) (Mobile)
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (2009) (Nintendo DS)
• Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep (2010) (PSP)
• Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix (2010) (PSP)
• Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded (2010) (Nintendo DS)
• Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance (2012) (Nintendo 3DS)
• Kingdom Hearts X (2013) (Internet Browser)
• Kingdom Hearts Unchained X / Union X  (2015 / renamed in 2017) (Mobile)
• Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep 0.2: A Fragmentary Passage (2017) (PS4)
• Kingdom Hearts X Back Cover (2017) (PS4)
• Kingdom Hearts 3 (2019) (Xbox One / PS4)
• Kingdom Hearts 3: ReMind DLC (2020) (Xbox One / PS4)
• Kingdom Hearts Dark Road (2020) (Mobile)
• Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory (2020) (Xbox One / PS4 / Switch) 

HOW TO PLAY THE KINGDOM HEARTS GAMES IN ORDER: TECHRADAR’S ORDER

If you don’t want to play the games in release or chronological order, and instead want a fan’s opinion on how to take on the Kingdom Hearts series then this is the list for you. 

Having played through the Kingdom Hearts series a few times, we’re confident that this blend of both of the other lists should help you understand the story a little better than either chronological or release order. In this list, you won’t jump around chronologically too often, but when you do the next game will help fill in gaps rather than raise too many more questions about what’s going on.

To make things simpler we’ve also stripped out any remakes and specified the exact version we think you should play to get the best Kingdom Hearts experience possible.

• Kingdom Hearts Final Mix
• Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
• Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix
• Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix
• Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep 0.2: A Fragmentary Passage
• Kingdom Hearts Re: Coded
• Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
• Kingdom Hearts Union X
• Kingdom Hearts Dark Road
• Kingdom Hearts 3
• Kingdom Hearts 3: ReMind DLC
• Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory

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