Kingdom Hearts almost led to Disney making its own version of Super Smash Bros, former dev says
Developing story first seen 4 hours ago
A former Disney Interactive concept artist has revealed further detail on how Kingdom Hearts' success nearly pushed Disney into making its own Super Smash Bros-style fighting game. Ken Christiansen, who worked on the original Kingdom Hearts, told Time Extension that Disney executives had initially resisted mixing characters from different franchises, causing friction during that game's development, but the title's strong sales on PlayStation 2 changed the company's stance and opened the door to crossover projects.
This led to pre-production on a game with the working title Disney's Action Figure Face Off, envisioned as a Toy Story-style brawler in which action figures of characters from Tarzan, The Lion King and Treasure Planet would fight one another, echoing Super Smash Bros 64's own toys-come-to-life concept. The project never progressed beyond prototypes, as Disney opted to prioritise safer film tie-ins instead, though later titles such as Disney Infinity, Disney Speedstorm and Disney Dreamlight Valley went on to combine its franchises in similar ways. Kingdom Hearts itself remains active, with Kingdom Hearts 4 due late next year alongside a Disney Plus anime series.
- Kingdom Hearts' success nearly led Disney to make its own Smash Bros
- Cancelled project "Disney's Action Figure Face Off" never left prototype stage
- Disney later reused the crossover idea in Infinity, Speedstorm and Dreamlight Valley
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Kingdom Hearts, released in 2002, was a hit action role-playing game that combined Disney characters with those from Square Enix's Final Fantasy series. Its success on the PlayStation 2 marked a turning point for Disney, which had previously been wary of mixing characters from different franchises together in games.
Super Smash Bros is Nintendo's popular fighting game series, first released in 1999, in which characters from different Nintendo franchises battle one another. It became a byword for crossover fighting games and inspired other companies, including Disney, to consider similar projects using their own characters.
Ken Christiansen is a former concept artist at Disney Interactive who worked on the original Kingdom Hearts. His recent comments to the gaming outlet Time Extension shed light on an unreleased Disney project from that era, offering a glimpse into how the company's approach to blending its franchises has evolved over the past two decades.
Full account
Kingdom Hearts' unlikely success in mashing together Disney's biggest franchises reportedly came close to giving the House of Mouse its own take on Super Smash Bros, according to Ken Christiansen, a former Disney Interactive concept artist who worked on the original Kingdom Hearts. Speaking in an interview published by Time Extension on 1 September, Christiansen said the game's willingness to let unrelated Disney worlds collide changed how the company thought about crossovers, eventually inspiring a fighting-game concept built around Disney characters battling as action figures.
Christiansen recalled that getting Kingdom Hearts made in the first place was far from straightforward, since Disney executives were uneasy about blending properties as distinct as The Lion King and The Little Mermaid. He described this as the main sticking point for the American arm of the company, which struggled to accept its flagship characters sharing a single adventure, leading to some friction between Disney and the development team. Even so, he said the artists and producers working on the project were enthusiastic about the crossover concept from the start.
Once Kingdom Hearts proved a major commercial hit on PlayStation 2, Disney reportedly became far more open to blending its franchises, and a new project entered early development under the working title Disney's Action Figure Face Off. The pitch, as Christiansen described it, borrowed Toy Story's premise of toys coming to life but replaced friendship with combat, envisioning action figures from films such as Tarzan, The Lion King and Treasure Planet fighting one another in a format likened directly to Smash Bros. The idea reportedly went no further than prototype stage before Disney chose to prioritise more conventional film and television tie-in games instead.
Although the fighting game itself never emerged, elements of its crossover ambitions later surfaced in other Disney projects, including Disney Infinity, Disney Speedstorm and Disney Dreamlight Valley, while Kingdom Hearts itself remains active, with Kingdom Hearts IV expected next year alongside a Disney+ anime adaptation. Concept art Christiansen posted to his portfolio back in 2013, showing rough one-on-one pairings such as Captain Hook against Beast and Ursula against John Silver, had hinted at the abandoned project for years before he confirmed the story behind it.
Where outlets differ
The report on Time Extension (via a games-news outlet summarising it) frames the story around the joke that Disney nearly made its own Smash Bros, and adds surrounding context such as Super Smash Bros 64's own 'toys coming to life' framing, the later Disney crossover games (Infinity, Speedstorm, Dreamlight Valley), and upcoming Kingdom Hearts IV and Disney+ anime news.
The second outlet, written by Virginia Glaze and focused on Smash-related coverage, places more emphasis on Christiansen's 2013 portfolio artwork as the original clue to the project's existence, and gives specific detail on the character match-ups depicted (e.g. Sheriff of Nottingham vs King Louie, Queen of Hearts vs the Horned King), framing the story partly around 'confirming' long-standing fan speculation rather than as fresh revelation alone.
Minor sourcing note: both accounts rely on the same Time Extension interview as their primary source, so direct quotes from Christiansen are consistent between them; differences are mainly in framing and supplementary detail rather than factual disagreement.
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