Kingdom Hearts fuses disparate Disney and Square Enix properties into one branded universe

Evidence

Kingdom Hearts is a model example of the brandscape blockbuster video game. A role-playing game and collaboration between Disney and Square Enix, one of the biggest video game developers, Kingdom Hearts enables players to explore a fictional universe populated by dozens and dozens of characters and story lines from Disney, Pixar, and Square Enix properties (such as Final Fantasy). Starting in 2002 and now including thirteen different games, Kingdom Hearts has become a sprawling universe and franchise of toys, books, clothing, manga, and television. Disney not only licenses many of its most popular film and television properties to be adapted into video games, it also codevelops many different original games in different gameplay styles. These games attempt to build unique universes in which a broad range of its intellectual property is not just exploited strategically, but offered in a more immersive manner. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 420

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s core question: here the ownership/merger structure (Disney’s catalog) visibly determines the game’s diegetic world-building—the form is a brandscape because the underlying capital is a consolidated IP portfolio.