Recently the long winter that has been the lack of Kingdom Hearts III news ended not with a subtle hint from social media, but with an actual full-length trailer featuring tons of new gameplay and a glimpse at some of the new worlds Sora and company will visit on their journey. Now even more Kingdom Hearts III details have surfaced during the D23 Expo in Tokyo, featuring a development update, more gameplay news, and more. First, here’s the latest Kingdom Hearts III trailer as a refresher:

The new Kingdom Hearts III details come to us by way of an exclusive video that was shown at the D23 Expo featuring a special message from Tetsuya Nomura. Unfortunately that video was not made available to the public, though those in attendance were happy enough to spread the contents of the message via social media. Nomura was apparently hesitant in showing the Tangled world until today, as the development team had a significant amount of trouble getting Rapunzel’s hair to flow correctly. Now that the physics are properly in place, her hair can now move naturally around the environment and interact accordingly, such as curling around trees and reacting appropriately to wind.

It has also been revealed that the Gummi Ship will be fully customizable, not unlike the full range of options present in the first two Kingdom Hearts games. Players will be able to freely explore an open world-like environment, so it’s only fitting to be able to customize Sora and crew’s vehicle of choice. Ship combat will also be making a return as well, though what form that will take is still unknown.

An update on how far along the development of the game is was also discovered by Game Watch, revealing that while the first part of the game is 90% finished, 30-40% of the second part of the game still needs to be completed. Character production and animation as a whole are done, though additional pieces continue to be added in.

Kingdom Hearts III will be available at some point in the future, with the latest signs pointing at a 2018 release.

So, thoughts on the new Kingdom Hearts III details? Excited to pilot the Gummi Ship in an open-world environment? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, stay tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers for all the latest gaming and entertainment news! Don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for our 24/7 news feed!