The new HD remake for Dream Drop Distance will be the final Kingdom Hearts release to feature the voice of the late actors Chikao Ôtsuka and Leonard Nimoy, the Japanese and English voice actors of Master Xehanort. This is due to their previous voice work in the original Dream Drop Distance which was released prior to their deaths.
Though the game was delayed until 2017, it would coincidentally be released almost 5 years after the release of the original Dream Drop Distance on the 3DS as well as the 15th anniversary of the Kingdom Hearts series. Incidentally, the original Dream Drop Distance was used to celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary.
This is the only HD Collection to be originally released on the PS4 instead of the PS3 like its predecessors. This is because the PS4's Touchpad is easier to adept with some of Dream Drop Distances' controls as the game was originally designed for the Nintendo 3DS which had a dual-screen system. Additionally both Kingdom Hearts X (chi) Back Cover and 0.2 Birth by Sleep- A Fragmentary Passage uses the Unreal Engine 4 that gives it a higher quality of animation that will also be used with the later release of Kingdom Hearts III (2019).
To celebrate the franchise's 15th anniversary, Sora was added as a downloadable character to World of Final Fantasy (2016). His outfit is the outfit he wore in Dream Drop Distance. This was intended as a tribute to this game, as the Dream Drop Distance remake is part of this compilation game set.
As Dream Drop Distance was previously a Nintendo 3DS release, it is the only game in this set that uses archived footage since both 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A Fragmentary Passage-, and X (chi) Back Cover are completely brand new.