Kingdom Hearts' Most Famous Song Just Got A Brand-New Version

In 2002, Square Enix debuted the first game in the Kingdom Hearts franchise, which featured original characters mixed with Disney heroes and cameo appearances from Final Fantasy's fan favorites. Japanese pop star Hikaru Utada performed the main theme for the game, Hikari, which was rearranged for the American release as Simple and Clean. Now, 24 years later, Utada has debuted a new recording of Simple and Clean from her greatest hits album, Science Fiction.

Both versions of Utada's song have become synonymous with the game. Utada also provided the theme songs for both Kingdom Hearts 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3. Presumably, Utada will be invited to do the same for Kingdom Hearts 4, which may be released as soon as 2025 according to a recent rumor. In the meantime, Utada has debuted an updated recording of the Japanese language version of Hikari.

While fans await news about the future of the franchise, Square Enix recently announced that all of the previously released Kingdom Hearts games are coming to Steam on June 13. Prior to that news, Kingdom Hearts and its sequels were exclusive exclusive on PC to the Epic Games Store. This made it much less straightforward to get them running on the Steam Deck.