It has notoriously been over ten years since the last numbered Kingdom Hearts game came out, a wait that has been agonizing for many fans. However, it seems those delays were for good reason, as explained by one of Kingdom Hearts III's directors.

In a new interview with Newsweek, co-director Tai Yasue spoke a bit about the wait for Kingdom Hearts III and why it took so long to make following its announcement at E3 in 2013. Yasue said that before beginning work on KH3, Square Enix needed to revamp its game engine since the previous engine was now outdated. With this change, the team needed to learn how to adapt and work within this new engine.

"Our current engine is great in terms of developing a high end AAA title, but because there was a change in technology and work flows, it took some time for the team to adapt and adjust," Yasue told Newsweek. Considering all game engines since Kingdom Hearts II have roughly been the same since they've been on mainly handheld platforms like the PSP and 3DS, this makes a lot of sense.

Furthermore, Yasue said that he wanted to apologize to fans for making them wait so long. "I’m truly sorry to have kept everyone waiting for so long!" Yasue said. "It took a while, but we really wanted to make sure the game met everyone’s expectations. I hope, more than I’ve hoped for anything else in my 20 years of making games, that you all enjoy it."

Hopefully, Yasue is correct and that wait will be well worth it once Kingdom Hearts III officially releases later this month on January 29 for PS4 and Xbox One. To read more from Yasue's recent interview, you can click here to see what he said about the potential of additional Disney worlds appearing in-game .