New Sword Art Online Film Project in Development

Sword Art Online‘s 10th anniversary event brought news of a brand-new Sword Art Online film project in the works.

Aniplex also aired a brief teaser.

The Sword Art Online film project tease itself is very light on concrete information and does not even confirm if the project is animated. The terms used to describe it, though, are telling. They trumpet it as an “entirely new” and “original” feature film. It could even be a hint about a potential live-action production. In 2016, Skydance Media acquired the rights to produce a live action TV series adaptation of Sword Art Online.

This framing could be a hint mean that, whatever the project turns out to be, it won’t be connected to the animated Sword Art Online Progressive film adaptations. Of that series, two films have been released: Aria of a Starless Night and Scherzo of a Dark Dusk. Progressive tells a reimagined story of the original Aincrad arc, focusing in greater detail on the earlier adventures of Kirito, Asuna, and other key SAO cast members.

One other Sword Art Online feature film exists, and it’s the anime-original Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale. Ordinal Scale takes place between the second and third seasons of the anime series (i.e. between the “Phantom Bullet” arc and SAO: Alicization), and follows Kirito and the gang’s encounters while playing with the Augma, an augmented-reality device that projects virtual images onto the real world (as opposed to the “full dive” VR they usually employed).

The Sword Art Online anime series are available to view on various streaming and retail platforms. A new Sword Art Online game, Last Recollection is in development for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.