Bandai Namco announced Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris has been delayed due to the Coronavirus state of emergency in Japan. Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris was supposed to launch on May 21 in Japan and May 22 worldwide, but was now delayed to July 9 in Japan and July 10 worldwide.
A message from Producer Yosuke Futami was shared as well. In it, he apologies to the fans and explains that a delay is inevitable with the current situation. This is a decision Bandai Namco took when considering the safety of each and every person involved in SAOAL‘s development.
SAOAL already received its CERO C rating, so the temporary closure of CERO announced on April 7 won’t affect the game’s release. Back then, Producer Yosuke Futami said in a now deleted tweet (at the very least, I cannot find it anymore) that the game’s DLC content could get affected however. But that either way, they’ll keep working from home and do everything they can. And now, a delay was announced after reevaluating the situation.
On April 10, the anime Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld Part 2 was also delayed from April to July. When this announcement came around, multiple fans were expecting SAOAL to get delayed too. We are now settled.
You should expect many other Japanese games to get delayed this way. As Masahiro Sakurai hinted, most Japanese studios can’t work as well and take decisions without directly meeting each other.
Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris adapts the first part of the Alicization arc but has some major story differences starting at what corresponds to episode 24 of the SAO Alicization anime. SAOAL is developed by Aquria, the Japanese studio behind SAO Infinity Moment, Hollow Fragment, and Hollow Realization. You can check out some gameplay, trailers and an explanation of the battle system through our past coverage. We also got details on the story and all the new original characters appearing Alicization Lycoris. The game will also feature a Premium Pass and DLC content we detailed here. Producer Futami also teased that characters who don’t appear in the Alicization arc first part like Silica might still be included at some point.
Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris will be available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
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