Streamer Discovers New Kingdom Hearts II Softlock Over 15 Years After Release

The Kingdom Hearts games are, for the most part, reasonably polished experiences, so when a potentially brand new softlock is discovered, it’s a pretty big deal. Variety streamer Shawberrie and her friend Tatsoomaki recently encountered what is believed to be the first recorded instance of a softlock that occurs in Kingdom Hearts II’s Port Royal world.

Prominent Kingdom Hearts content creator, damo279, did some testing and found out that while Shawberrie encountered this dilemma on the PC port of the title, it is also possible on the PlayStation 4, and thereby, potentially likely on every other version.

This softlock can occur during the second required Port Royal visit where Sora and the party have to acquire Medallions from Gambler Nobodies spread throughout the world. The fights with these Gambler Nobodies that have Medallions are timed, and they despawn when the timer runs out. However, these enemies have a minigame that can be triggered where Sora has to choose between shuffling ‘X’ and ‘O’ symbols, with the latter being the correct choice. When initiating this minigame, the timer stops.

Though, by some stroke of miraculous fate, Shawberrie accidentally triggered this minigame right when the timer ran out, signaling the Gambler Nobody’s despawn. Sora then became stuck in an animation from the minigame, resulting in the softlock. It’s a pretty wild discovery, and you can gather more intricate details from the occurrence via damo279’s video below: