A new Sword Art Online game is on the way. At Full Dive Continue, a livestream event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the anime, Bandai Namco and Kadokawa announced Sword Art Online: Last Recollection, an action-RPG and a follow-up to 2020’s Alicization Lycoris. The game is targeted for release in 2023 on current consoles and PC.
Check out the new Sword Art Online game teaser trailer below.
The Sword Art Online: Last Recollection teaser and official website lay out the premise, which adapts the “War of Underworld” story from the original novels and anime. As in the original story, the virtual environment of Underworld (where Kirito and his pals were trapped during the events of Alicization Lycoris) is on the verge of ruin. The gate between the Human Empire and the Dark Territory is breached, and “Final Load Test” — a massive invasion intended to test the potential of the A.I. lifeforms living in Underworld — begins. A new character, a dark knight known as Dorothy, escapes the Dark Territory with Sarai. Dorothy seeks to bring an end to her unchangeable fate, one that leads her to ask what the difference is between the world ending and her dying.
Sword Art Online: Last Recollection will adapt the new events of War of Underworld to the unique, game-original timeline that’s persisted through the various Sword Art Online game adaptations. It’ll have the largest playable character roster in the franchise so far, and the largest number of story episodes. In addition to new original characters like Dorothy, the trailer and website features characters who played roles in the War for Underworld story, like Shuster (aka Shasta), Lipia, Iskahn, and Dil, leaders of the Dark Territory’s armies. Singer ReoNa will once again provide the game’s theme song.
Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, who voices Kirito in the anime and games, recorded a video message for fans.
The video featured Matsuoka explaining that the game timeline is different from that of the anime and novels, and that some of the events and characters are also different. Indeed, the taglines for Last Recollection promise that the story will be “new” and explore different outcomes (such as if characters like Kirito and Eugeo were present during events that they weren’t there for in the original story).
Sword Art Online: Last Recollection launches on the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC in 2023 in Japan. Overseas release plans have not yet been confirmed. The previous Sword Art Online game, Alicization Lycoris, arrived on Nintendo Switch in 2022, years after becoming available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
