Japanese media publisher Dengeki have announced that two new major characters will be appearing in all current video games based on Reki Kawahara and abec’s Sword Art Online light novel series. The new characters are Eugeo and Alice from the Alicization arc, the next major arc following Mother’s Rosario. Both characters will be fully voiced.
A total of 4 games will feature the pair from Project Alicization:
- Sword Art Online: Code Register
- Sword Art Online: Memory Defrag
- Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization
- Accel World VS Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight
It will be the first step in introducing the Alicization arc to the Sword Art Online franchise, outside of the light novels. The content will be appearing in the mentioned games within the next week.
The voice actor and actress were also revealed for Eugeo and Alice, respectively, along with their anime character designs:
- Nobunaga Shimazaki (Haruka Nanase from Free!) will voice Eugeo
- Ai Kayano (Utaha Kasumigaoka in Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata) is going to voice Alice
Here is the announcement video for the new characters:
The Alicization arc was also teased during the post credit sequence of the anime’s recent film Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale, where Kikuoka Seijirou welcomes Shigemura Tetsuhiro (one of the movie’s original characters) to Rath. The end of the film also notes the following phrase:
SAO will return
The film released on Saturday, February 18th in Japan in over 150 theatres and had a worldwide release on March 9th. It is projected that Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale will release in over 1000 screens around the world.
Sword Art Online is a light novel series written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec, who also is the author of Accel World. The light novel series began in 2009 being published in ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko. To date a total of 17 volumes have been compiled in the series. Since the series’ debut, the series has sold over 19 million copies, with 12.5 million sold in Japan alone. Additionally in 2012, an anime adaptation was released. The Sword Art Online anime aired in July and was produced by A-1 Pictures, which received a large reception; it was followed by a recap film and a second season. Since then, the series has appeared on a plethora of media with international merchandise, various manga adaptations of the light novel’s arcs, and video games. In addition, Kawahara has relaunched the series as Sword Art Online: Progressive, a re-release of the light novels with additional content.
Here is a synopsis of the anime from MAL:
1 year after the SAO incident, Kirito is approached by Seijiro Kikuoka from Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Department “VR Division” with a rather peculiar request.
That was an investigation on the “Death Gun” incident that occurred in the gun and steel filled VRMMO called Gun Gale Online (GGO). “Players who are shot by a mysterious avatar with a jet black gun lose their lives even in the real world…” Failing to turn down Kikuoka’s bizarre request, Kirito logs in to GGO even though he is not completely convinced that the virtual world could physically affect the real world.
Kirito wanders in an unfamiliar world in order to gain any clues about the “Death Gun.” Then, a female sniper named Sinon who owns a gigantic “Hecate II” rifle extends Kirito a helping hand. With Sinon’s help, Kirito decides to enter the “Bullet of Bullets,” a large tournament to choose the most powerful gunner within the realm of GGO, in hopes to become the target of the “Death Gun” and make direct contact with the mysterious avatar.
Eugeo and Alice from the Alicization arc will be appearing in 4 Sword Art Online games, both fully voiced and in their anime designs. The content will be added to the games within the week.
Visit the games’ hub website here: http://sao-game.jp/
The anime’s website here: http://www.swordart-online.net/
And follow the series on their Twitter: @sao_anime
“Sword Art Online: Code Register”, “Sword Art Online: Memory Defrag, “Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization”, “Accel World VS Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight”, “Sword Art Online”, images and all associated brands and titles © 2017 Reki Kawahara, A-1 Pictures, ASCII Media Works, SAO Project and the SAO Game Project