Roxas (Kingdom Hearts) performer Jesse McCartney
Creation and development
After Sora first cameo at the end of Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, the series' director, Tetsuya Nomura, was questioned about the character. However, he refrained from revealing too much detail about him and said he would become an important, playable character for the franchise. The developers wrote Roxas' story in Kingdom Hearts II to add mixed feelings to the game in a short time frame. After receiving a positive fan response to Roxas' sad scenario, Nomura concluded that it was well executed. He also stated that Roxas' merging with Sora in the game was one of the most memorable scenes from the series for him. Nomura later commented that Roxas was one of the first characters created for Organization XIII, and was always intended to be the 13th member. The meaning of Roxas' name was meant to be revealed in a scene in Kingdom Hearts II that shows the letters in the word "Sora" rearranged with the "X" added to expand the connection between the characters. However, this scene was omitted as Nomura found it difficult to implement time-wise. Since his debut in Kingdom Hearts II, Roxas has been voiced in Japanese by Kōki Uchiyama and by Jesse McCartney in the English versions.