'Kingdom Hearts 3' release date: Nintendo NX version not certain; Leak debunked

A screenshot of Sora in "Kingdom Hearts 3"Square-Enix

A leak that teases a Nintendo NX version of the "Kingdom Hearts 3" made the rounds recently, eliciting excitement from fans. It turns out it is nothing but an elaborate hoax.

The leak featured a screenshot of the EB Games website stating that the yet-to-be-released game up for pre-order. The release date was stated as "TBC 2017" and the price was $119.95.

It quickly blew up on Twitter, but EB Games Australia confirmed to a fan who verified the image's authenticity that someone indeed had a lot of time on their hands.

"This item has never been available for preorder on our website. I would guess some amount of Photoshop was involved," the retailer replied.

"Kingdom Hearts 3" still has no release date as developer Square Enix chooses to focus on "Kingdom Hearts 2.8" launching later this year.

The company did not even feature "Kingdom Hearts 3" at the Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3 2016 and instead gave spotlight all to the prologue game. Square Enix knows that fans are thirsty for news, and they promise to unload tons of details soon.

Speaking to Venture Beat, game director Tai Yasue made known to fans that they realize the agony, but they want to make sure that anything they do related to "Kingdom Hearts 3" will be huge.

"We want each announcement to be special. We want to exceed our fans' expectations and we want to do it in a good way. We want to plan things out, the way we announce things. It's not that stressful, at least for me," he explained.

During the interview, he also spoke a bit about the types of worlds to expect in "Kingdom Hearts 3." Yasue said that, "We don't want them all to be Kingdom Hearts original worlds. We want the rich Disney worlds as well as the original worlds."

For now, "Kingdom Hearts 3" is not confirmed for Nintendo NX. Rumor has it that it will be released early next year.