Kingdom Hearts 4 Really Doesn't Need Olympus Again | Screen Rant
Olympus Coliseum, a world that has appeared in every Kingdom Hearts game since the beginning in 2002, has run its course in the series and should not return in the newly announced Kingdom Hearts 4. The setting is overplayed with how many entries it's appeared in by now, and other Disney movies can do what the games have done with it better and more creatively. There is simply no need for it anymore in Kingdom Hearts going forward.
Kingdom Hearts 4 was part of a pair of announcements celebrating the series' 20th anniversary alongside Kingdom Hearts: Missing-Link. The trailer for the game seems to continue the storyline teased in Kingdom Hearts 3's secret movie, with Sora somehow appearing in modern-day Shibuya. This, combined with Kingdom Hearts 3 showing that Disney is finally letting Kingdom Hearts utilize worlds from Pixar studios, shows that the series is potentially being allowed to go all the way with its madcap ideas.
With that in mind, there's really no need to continue repeating the same ideas that Kingdom Hearts has been falling back on since its inception in Kingdom Hearts 4, and that includes the worlds it has brought back in every entry. Olympus Coliseum has appeared more times than any other Kingdom Hearts world. The gamut has been run on stories to be told in its setting.
As fun as it is to hear Sean Astin reprise his interpretation of Tate Donovan's original performance, and Robert Costanzo doing his near-perfect Danny DeVito impression, the whole world of Hercules - at least for now - is completely played out in Kingdom Hearts and doesn't need to be in Kingdom Hearts 4. The well-reviewed Kingdom Hearts 3's brilliant opening level demonstrated the pinnacle of what can be done with this world. All of Greece and Mount Olympus itself became a massive battlefield, showing the player that this sequel was going to be on a completely different scale from last time.
However, there's nowhere left to go with this setting after that. Granted, the main reason this world keeps being brought back is so that the game has a tournament, but more recent films like Raya and the Last Dragon could easily fill that void in Kingdom Hearts 4 while also giving a funner and more interesting setting to boot. After 13 games, it's safe to say that the setting of ancient Greece has been as explored as it can be.
On top of all of that, the games going forward won't even be able to use the entire cast anymore. Phil was completely silent in Kingdom Hearts 3 and it's been speculated that it's because his Japanese voice actor, Ichiro Nagai, sadly passed away in 2014. Given the character wasn't recast in Kingdom Hearts 3, it seems unlikely that they'd return in Kingdom Hearts 4, so any future appearances of Olympus Coliseum will have to be sans-Phil. At this point, it's for the best that Kingdom Hearts 4 retire the series' most commonly used world.