Gamers have been patiently waiting for the long overdue eleventh installment in the "Kingdom Hearts" video game series — "Kingdom Hearts 3" — for a while now. The past couple of weeks have been especially agonizing, as there have been no new updates on its development status.

Fortunately, the developers were attentive enough to notice the absence of any updates and have now released a couple of new in-game screenshot to once again ignite the excitement of the game's upcoming release.

The screenshots that were posted on the game's official Twitter account shows several hints about what will be included in the upcoming game. The post also revealed that the decision to share the images was the idea of the game's director — Tetsuya Nomura — and was meant to appease fans who have been patienly waiting for new updates on the upcoming title.

The twitter post containted the following message, "As we don't have any news for #KHIII, Nomura-san would like to offer everyone a sneak peek at Guard Form - a new Drive Form!" 

At first glance, there is nothing out of the ordinary with the screenshots, but upon further investigation there is apparently a lot of details that can be gathered from them. One of the images shows Sora using a brand new Drive Form that is mainly used for defense. The new Guard Form, as the developers had called it, transforms Sora's Keyblade into a shield.

The background of the images also shows a brand new location, which appears to be Mount Olympus from the 1997 Disney animated film, "Hercules." The world of "Hercules" was previously featured in "Kingdom Hearts 2," but players were only able to access the Coliseum area. The next game may be featuring more areas this time around and possibly the inclusion of characters such as Zeus or Megara.

Another image — which was heavily edited — shows another brand new Drive Form. While Sora's weapon was erased in the image, some reports have speculated that it could be a powerful weapon of some kind that is aimed at dealing a lot of damage.

"Kingdom Hearts 3" is expected to be released sometime next year, right after the release of "Kingdom Hearts 2.8" on January 24, 2017.