In June 2021, the game's developer NetherRealm issued an apology after it received backlash from the community over its special event in celebration of Pride Month in the mobile port of Injustice 2. The event's challenge was for players to defeat Poison Ivy, a character which identifies as bisexual, hundreds and thousands of times to unlock prizes, a task which was deemed to be tone-deaf by the community.

In their apology, they stated, "We recognize associating our latest Global Challenge with Pride was insensitive and inappropriate. Real life violence against the LGBTQIA+ community and women within that community in particular is all too common and we should actively engage in efforts to end LGBTQIA+ violence, not normalize it. We apologize to the greater community, but especially LGBTQIA+ members. We are committed to listening and doing better."

One of the random title screen splash messages "Woo, /v/!", a reference to the dedicated video game imageboard "/v/" on website 4chan, was removed from the PC Java version of the game in update ver.1.17 released in 2021. It's unknown why it was removed, neither was it mentioned in the game's official patch notes, but it's presumably due to the controversial nature of the website which Microsoft may wish to distance themselves from.

During the game's early years, the game's creator Markus "Notch" Persson had heavily promoted the game on a number of websites including 4chan, which its success he partly attributed to the website.

Within the game's demo, a bottle of cleaning fluid can be found in one of the homes with writing on the label. Looking closely reveals that it quotes the first verse of the 1992 song "Creep" by English alternative rock band Radiohead.

When using the Classic Tone keyblade's Shotlock, Sora actually turns into the same exact cartoony monochrome form that he had donned when he was in the retro Timeless River world in Kingdom Hearts II. In addition, the 'portals' he comes out of and goes into during the Shotlock are extremely similar to the doorways that lead to different areas of the world that are used by the characters in Timeless River's story.

During a scene with the character Demyx, he spouts the line "Yes, Demyx time!" This may be a reference to the web-series "Demyx Time", which released in the late 2000's and followed a cosplayer dressed as Demyx going over Demyx's daily life and events inside Organization XIII.

The team behind Square Enix's Einhander helped develop the expansive Gummi Ship aspect of Kingdom Hearts III. They even included references to Einhander, including an unlockable Gummi Blueprint obtained by scanning a constellation in the Misty Stream area that greatly resembles Einhander' Endymion ship. One of Einhander's bosses, the Schwarzgeist, also cameos as a boss in Kingdom Hearts III, and a remix of Einhander 'Thermosphere' plays when the boss is fought with most Gummi ships. However, if the boss is fought with the Endymion blueprint, then the original PlayStation 1 version of the Thermosphere theme will play.

Concept art featured in early design documents of the first Kingdom Hearts game shows a world clearly based on Disney-Pixar's Toy Story franchise that, for reasons that have not officially been stated, does not appear in the final release. A Toy Story world would, however, appear in Kingdom Hearts III

In the Game Boy Advance port of the game, 2 of the secret levels have different names depending on the region:

Joe Higashi’s personality was apparently modeled after the lead character from the Japanese show Abarehacchaku.

The Kyokugenryu Dojo poster, drawn by Hiroaki, is a homage to a poster for the Bruce Lee film Enter the Dragon.

According to Oji Hiroi in Vol. 22 of The Super Famicom magazine, Tengai Makyo originally wasn't going to be a series, and was planned to be a single game. He elaborated, saying:

"The first map I drew for the game was way too huge, though, and we split it into three parts. That left a whole section of the game for China, as well as Kyuushuu and the Ryukyu islands. I realized if we left it at just one game, the player would never learn the origins of the Fire Clan or the Book of WareWare."

According to general producer Noritaka Funamizu in the Gamest magazine interview, he named the third game for Japan “Vampire Savior” because he wanted each title to have a unique name instead of just calling it by it's early name 'Vampire 3'. He added "As for the meaning, I’ll leave that for players to discover."

According to game's illustrator Tomomi Kobayashi in a 1996 Game Hihyou magazine interview, Hawke is based on 'Blood the pirate' from Osamu Tezuka’s Ribbon no Kishi ('Princess Knight').

In the RBFF guidebook interview, the game's staff were asked about why they updated 'Real Bout' by changing the layout of the buttons. They responded:

"In Fatal Fury 3 we introduced the Oversway Line. It seemed to be very difficult for new players, but we were convinced the idea itself was good. So we tried to make it easier to use this game, which meant adding a dedicated button for it. That was the biggest reason for changing the entire button layout."

Having three attack buttons also corresponded to having weak, mid, and strong attacks, which matched their vision of the game being simple to understand, but deep.

In the RBFF guidebook interview, the game's staff were asked about the meaning of the title “Real Bout”? And they responded:

"That was actually the working project title of the original Garou Densetsu. As this development progressed, we wracked our brains trying to come up with a new title for this sequel, and wondered if changing the entire title itself wouldn’t be more interesting. Then someone suggested, “hey, what if we bring back ‘Real Bout’…” So we have a lot of attachment to it, as you might imagine."

According to an interview with the game's planner and graphic designer Yukio Takahashi in the book 'Game Shokunin', it took him a whole year to finish off development of the game. He had to do everything but the programming himself, and drew all the graphics in about 5 to 6 months.

In an interview with game's director and designer Noriyoshi Ohba, he was told about how popular the game's composer Yuzo Koshiro’s music was. He commented:

"Yeah, it’s really a collection of some of his most famous songs. The Chinatown stage theme, in particular, is amazing. I remember getting goosebumps when [...] I listened to a demo tape of the Chinatown theme for the first time. I was impressed by his work, and we worked well together, so I asked him to do the music for Streets of Rage the following year."

Ohba's sound effects would also be re-used in later titles such as the Streets of Rage games.

The reason for the game's closure was due to it not being deemed financially sustainable any more. The game had already ran past its original plan and the team wanted to move on as they had to take on other projects.

Despite receiving lots of requests from fans to bring back the game, it would be deemed impractical due to no one having looked at the game's code in years and lots of licensing obligations in relation to the actor's likenesses.

On April 24, 1994, the dismembered remains of a body was found all over Japan's Inokashira Park. The murder was almost identical to the beginning of Shin Megami Tensei, released two years earlier. The main character dreams of a murder by dismemberment in Inokashira Park, only to wake up and find the dream came true. It is believed that the murderer was mimicking the events of the game, but was never proven and the case remains unsolved to this day.