I agree with this. Seems likely.

Same director, and Square is notrious for taking loger to make a game than needed. Final Fantasy XIII took 5 years to develop and it was linear. Final Fantasy XIV took 8-9 years.

Story is the easiest part of the game to develop, btw.

I already stated why comparing KH development time to FF development time makes no sense, go back and read my post.  In case you think cause its linear that makes up the difference its not even close, FFXIII was still a way bigger game than any KH game, they are not even comparable.  I'm questioning if you've played KH2, the sizes of the worlds is tiny.  

Also its not just the story that was done, the combat was too for the most part, Nomura said if you've played DDD the combat in KH 3 is gonna feel very familiar. 

As I thought people on this site just love to hate on SE and that's all this thread is gonna do.

I played and finished KH2. Haven't finished KH1.

I assume you've never played Final Fantasy XIII. The worlds were small in that as well, and it was very much a linear game, unlike XV. Still took 5 years.

The reason KH2 took so little time was because they could reuse the engine from KH1 along with almost all of the textures, meshes, etc. Not possible with KH3, it has to be built pretty much ground-up.

Have you?  Cause FF13 is 1.5x-2x longer than KH2, and KH2 has A LOT of backtracking to worlds you've already been too.  If you saw the trailer to KH3 they are using some of the exact same environments from KH2.  You still haven't given a valid reason as to why the game is gonna take 6 years to make other than oh its SE they take forever to make games.

*sigh*

Environment has NOTHING to do with it. They will have a similar scheme, yes. But they need to develop the engine, meshes, texture, effects, etc. from the ground up. They can't port the same game items like they did from Kingdom Hearts to Kingdom Hearts 2. Not only that, but Disney has expanded the universe quite a bit. There are bound to be many more worlds now than there were in 2.

And FFXIII is NOT 2x longer, unless you are counting the hours of cutscenes present.

They are not making an engine from the ground up for KH3, they are using the luminous engine that was already done.  Also ofc there is gonna be new worlds, there was new worlds in KH2, that didn't make it take 6 years to develop.  I'll say it again since you keep avoiding the question, what specifically is gonna take this game 6 years to develop.

Even Nomura thinks that they announced the game too early.

http://gematsu.com/2013/06/kingdom-hearts-iii-announced-a-little-early

And they are using an existing engine, but they will have to do more than just some minor modifications.

And did you even read my post? I said that Kingdom Hearts 2 ported over almost all the graphical elements from Kingdom Hearts 1. The team did not have to spend any time developing those (which is what takes the longest), so all they had to do was use the existing elements and even worlds and just add to them a little. 

With this, you are developing for a completely different generation. All your graphical elements must be built from the ground-up.

Ofc they announced it early, the game had only been in development for 1 year, that proves nothing.  Your really grasping for anything now.

I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt since you've never played KH1, but no there was not just minor modifications, KH2 looks leaps and bounds better than KH1.  They did not "port over almost all the graphical elements."  The fact that you think the team "did not spend any time developing those" in KH2 is laughable.  

end od 2016 or later