The video forms the newest episode in Shesez’s Boundary Break series, which uncovers secrets that lay beyond the border of beloved games.
In a new YouTube video, content creator Shesez has broken the boundary of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, unveiling areas of the game that have never been seen before. The video forms the newest episode in Shesez’s Boundary Break series, which dives deeply into beloved games in search of unused assets, abandoned locations, and other secrets hidden out of sight.
Using a free camera control system recently built by fellow boundary breaker Heebo, Shesez has been able to zoom out of the game to a degree not previously achievable. Broadening the scope of the camera as he does in the video, he reveals not only the ‘boundaries’ of the game’s various areas, but also what lies outside those boundaries. From unused areas to other scrapped assets, boundary-breaking can dig up any aspects of a game that may be otherwise buried off-camera.
One of the most interesting secrets revealed by Shesez in the video is a full 360 render of Sora’s bedroom. As seasoned Kingdom Hearts fans will know, Sora’s bedroom is an inaccessible area in the game, only appearing as the backdrop of one brief cutscene before never being seen again.
Because this cutscene of Sora’s bedroom is rendered by the in-game engine – which requires all assets to be individually rendered and loaded into the game before the cutscene can play – fans have known for years that a full render of Sora’s bedroom had to exist somewhere within the game. Previous limitations in boundary-breaking technology, however, have prevented deep-divers from wading into Kingdom Hearts Final Mix and accessing its out-of-bounds areas, Sora’s bedroom included.
Although Sora’s bedroom makes an appearance in the game, other assets that have surfaced today have never been seen before at all, on account of ultimately going unused in the game. As Shesez points out, most of these unused assets are littered around Halloween Town – there is a treasure chest in Oogie Boogie’s hideout, for example, that is stationed firmly out-of-bounds, remaining unopenable in a regular playthrough. It is unknown what could be inside, if indeed there is anything inside at all.
It is worth noting that the version of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix explored in the video is not the original released for PlayStation 2 in Japan, but rather the HD remaster first released in 2012 for the PlayStation 3. This remastered version features wider dimensions designed to fit most modern televisions, as well as optimized graphics and improved audio mixing. Today, the HD remaster of the original Kingdom Hearts as well as other key titles in the series are available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox.
