Summary
Ah,Kingdom Hearts. It truly is a franchise unlike most others. Disney and Final Fantasy mashed together, yet somehow neither of those aspects even matters in the grand scheme of it all. Kingdom Hearts is Kingdom Hearts, and playing it is really the only way of understanding that statement.
That said, Disney does definitely get some preferential treatment over Final Fantasy, with almost every world pulled directly from Disney’s IPs. However, there are quite a few Kingdom Hearts games at this point which makes it a little hard to track how many worlds there even are. So let’s whip out our calculators and work it out!
Updated on Jul 11, 2025, by Hilton Webster:Although we’re still (Im)patiently awaiting the latest entry in the Kingdom Hearts series, that doesn’t mean we don’t have plenty of the series to revisit, especially with its recent launch on Steam. Let’s take a closer look at every world in the series, including the one entry still not found on Steam.
Kingdom Hearts - 13 Worlds
The beginning of the franchise, and arguably the purest in terms of the original premise of Kingdom Hearts. Each Disney World comes with its own gimmicks and there’s a childlike whimsy to it all, free of many of Kingdom Hearts’s more… eccentric elements until the endgame.
Here are all the worlds that appear in the very first game in the franchise.
There’s a good variety there, from classic Disney entries to a handful of original worlds too.Altogether, that comes up to 13 Worlds.
Kingdom Hearts: Chain Of Memories - 13 Worlds
Chain of Memories is a game that, sadly, can’t be played in its ideal form anymore. Though the 3D remake exists in Re:Chain of Memories, the original pixel art entry for the Gameboy Advance is unrivalled in looks, and the unique card battling system works better in 2D than 3D.
You play as Riku after completing Sora’s campaign, who has a much more bearable combat style in the remake.
The worlds, which are really just glorified recaps of Kingdom Hearts 1, are as follows.
So yeah, it is mostly just retreading old ground. You can’t ignore it though either, or else you won’t know why half of Organization XIII is dead by the time Kingdom Hearts 2 rolls around. Once again, including the cutscene-only Twilight Town,we have 13 Worlds.
Kingdom Hearts 2 - 16 Worlds
The most beloved entry in the series that truly defined what Kingdom Hearts is as a series, and an Action-RPG high that Square Enix has never managed to achieve since.
In many ways, Kingdom Hearts 2 is tonally quite different than the original and definitely uses its Disney Worlds more for utility than the more unique style of the original. That said, there are still some bangers in there, such as:
With that,we have 15 Worlds, the highest number so far.
Kingdom Hearts: Coded - 10 Worlds
Kingdom Hearts Coded is another of the wonderful entries in the series that exists exclusively as a recap entry, and one of the few games that Square Enix had no interest in even remaking. It’s probably the least known game, owing possibly to the rumour that the concept was developed by a drunk Tetsuya Nomura. Anyway, here are the worlds.
This game does, however, have the line of “It’s Riku. They put bugs in him!” referring to data corruption put into an actual human. Except it’s actually a replica of Riku, but Sora doesn’t know that. He thinks they put data bugs in an actual person, bless his heart.That’s ten Worlds, by the way.
Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep - 12 Worlds
Birth By Sleep was the moment that Kingdom Hearts soared into unknown skies. It had now fully committed to its own lore rather than simply being a collaborative project between Disney and Square Enix. No, Birth by Sleep is the epitome of Kingdom Hearts - Disney characters butting their noses into a story about Light and Darkness and Heartless and Nobodies and the Power of Friendship.
That makes up 12 Worlds for Birth By Sleep, a respectable number for a handheld entry.
Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance - 7 Worlds
If Birth By Sleep is the point when Kingdom Hearts became fully self-indulgent, then Dream Drop Distance is the base of the iceberg. You cannot possibly imagine the events that go on in this story, and you will assuredly struggle to keep up with literally anything in Kingdom Hearts 3 if you haven’t played it. You also have Pokemon.
This game ends withRiku becoming a keyblade master after saving his (boy)friend, Sora, while the latter is stuck as a regular ol' keyblade user once again.Dream Drop Distance comes with only seven Worlds, though that’s a fair compromise considering they have to be completed by both characters.
The title has three D’s. As in 3D, because it was for the 3DS.
Kingdom Hearts 3 - 10 Worlds
The long-awaited and oddly-received third mainline entry in the long-running series, Kingdom Hearts 3 put a capstone on much of the plot established up to this point, and was also Nomura’s attempt to bring Final Fantasy Versus XIII back into reality. Without delving into all that, let’s look at all the worlds.
Kingdom Hearts 3 only came with ten Worlds, which is easily the lowest amount of any mainline entry.
Kingdom Hearts: Melody Of Memory - 47 Worlds
As you can already see from the title there, the number of worlds in Melody of Memory is just hilarious. 47 worlds. That is almost every single world in the entire series! With good reason though, as Melody of Memory is another recap game akin to Chain of Memories and Coded, except this time it’s truly trying to catch the entire series.
We’re not going to list every world that appears in the game because it is literally all of them. Read any other entry and realise to yourself, “Huh, that world is in Melody of Memory too!”. On the flip side, the game comes with no unique worlds of its own, a first for the series!
Kingdom Hearts χ - 12 Worlds
Ah, but how could we forget Kingdom Hearts χ and its various spin-offs? It’s hard to articulate exactly what this game is, but it’s best to say it did a similar thing to the series as Birth By Sleep by expanding the lore in a way you simply didn’t think was possible. This is set way in the past.
That’s pronounced ‘Cross’, by the way. Contrary to Xehanort’s pronunciation of ‘key’ or ‘chi’.
Kingdom Hearts χ comes with nine worlds, or 12 if you count the sub-worlds of Game Central Station.
How Many Worlds Are Revisited?
While Kingdom Hearts likes to break new ground with each entry and include new worlds from Disney’s ever-expanding media empire, nostalgia plays a large role in both corporate monopolisation and Kingdom Hearts' own themes. So you can bet more than a few worlds are revisited.
Let’s get a nice listing here of every world that reappears, and how many times it does pop up across the series.
Due to the recap games, every world appears at least twice so those will be discounted for the sake of clarity.
2
4
3 (or 5 if counting Radiant Garden)
3
2 (and a brief appearance in KH2)
7
5
Port Royal and The Caribbean
Tron (Space Paranoids and The Grid)
Some worlds, as you can see, appear quite a few times, though there is a clear stand out inOlympus Coliseum with a grand total of seven appearances, and even more if you count the recap games. It’s hilarious that it reappears more than Sora’s own home world.
How Many Worlds In Total?
So, stretching across the whole series, how many unique worlds does that present to us? That makes up a total of48 unique Worlds, or 51 if counting Game Central Station’s sub-worlds.
And which game has the most worlds? That prize goes toMelody of Memory with a staggering 47 worlds. Though considering all of them are revisited worlds, the real award goes toKingdom Hearts 2 with 15 Worlds.
And finally, which world is the most recurring in the series? Surprising no one, that would beOlympus which is only absent from two games.
And for now, that’s our total. Of course, Kingdom Hearts shows no signs of ending, and Disney has no sign of slowing down its monopolisation. So for now, the potential worlds in Kingdom Hearts are endless.
