Sora Free Running up a cliff towards the Rock Titan.

Free Running (フリーラン, Furī Ran, lit. "Free Run") is a movement mechanic in Kingdom Hearts III. Based on Flowmotion from Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance^[1] and utilizing mechanics from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-, it allows Sora to seamlessly navigate the environment such as short gaps and ledges without extra input from the player, as well as allowing him to run up walls which are faintly glowing by running against them. While Free Running, Sora can use Flowmotion abilities such as Superjump.

Development

The return of a Flowmotion-like ability was first shown briefly during the Jump Festa 2016 trailer,^[2] and was expanded on in later trailers. The Orchestra -World Tour- trailer in June 2017 showed Sora running on walls during the Rock Titan fight for the first time. Tetsuya Nomura revealed the new mechanic's name as Athletic Flow (アスレチックフロ, Asurechikku Furo) in an interview with Gameinformer a month later.^[1]

In a gameplay demo presented to the press in May 2018, a tutorial screen revealed the name Autorunning for the English version of the title, and described it as allowing Sora to "climb up small ledges and hop across narrow footholds."^[3] However, in the final game, the name was changed to Free Running.

Notes and references

• Game elements