Sword Art Online Unleash Blading Will Shut Down in January 2023

Bandai Namco announced that the servers for Sword Art Online: Unleash Blading will be shut down early next year. Additionally, it disabled the ability to purchase Diamond Cubes, the game’s premium currency. The game will officially go offline on January 16, 2023, at 6am. UTC.

First released in late November 2019, SAO Unleash Blading is a turn-based RPG that loosely follows the events of the series’ fourth major arc, Alicization, and beyond. At release, the mobile game was titled SAO Alicization Blading in Japan, while the global version was called SAO Alicization Rising Steel. The game rebranded in October 2021, which resulted in its current, final title.

Unleash Blading is not the first SAO mobile game, nor is it the series’ first mobile game to be shut down. The first to release was Sword Art Online: End World, a social network game, which came out in February 2013. Following that, at least one new SAO mobile game was released every year through 2018. Four of the series’ nine mobile games are exclusive to Japan, and two are exclusive to China. Upon its termination, Unleash Blading will be the fifth SAO mobile game to close down.

Servers for Sword Art Online Unleash Blading will be shut down on January 16, 2023. Premium currency purchases were disabled when the shutdown was announced. The game is available to download on iOS and Android devices until the end of service date.