Kingdom Hearts 4 will, notably, not be the fourth entry in the famously convoluted lineage of the series, and director Tetsuya Nomura knows that all the backstory is intimidating for new players. That's part of why there's been a story "reset" leading into the new game.
"As everyone has said, 'Kingdom Hearts 4 was just announced, but it's really just like 'Kingdom Hearts 13,'" Nomura says in an interview with Japanese magazine Young Jump (Google translated). Nomura adds that, while players intimately familiar with Kingdom Hearts lore will have a deeper appreciation for both Kingdom Hearts 4 and the upcoming mobile game Missing Link, they're both "being made with a stronger focus on being new titles rather than sequels."
