The Lion King (franchise) of five games. It features the characters Rafiki, Timon and Pumbaa. A game called "The Lion King 1½" was published in 2003 for the Game Boy Advance, based on the direct-to-video film and featuring Timon and Pumbaa as the playable characters. Some of the film's characters are playable in "Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure", a spin-off of the Tony Hawk games. In the Disney Interactive Studios and Square Enix video game "Kingdom Hearts", Simba appears as an ally that Sora can summon during battles. He also appears again as a summon character in "". In "Kingdom Hearts II", the Pride Lands
The Lion King (franchise) relation to "The Lion King" canon is questionable with the introduction of "The Lion King 1½". "The Lion Guard" follows the adventures of Simba and Nala's son Kion as he assembles the titular group of animals to protect the Pride Lands. A total of thirteen supervising animators from Walt Disney Animation Studios and Disney-MGM Studios were responsible for establishing the personalities and setting the tone for the first film's main characters. The animation team studied real-life animals for reference, as was done for the earlier film "Bambi". The animation of the characters counted with supervision by wildlife experts such as