Prolific developers Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc have announced its new upcoming mobile title, Sword Art Online Variant Showdown. With 2022 marking the 10 year anniversary of the anime, a new game was always on the cards, with a simultaneous worldwide release being exciting news for international fans.

Sword Art Online began life as a web novel self-published by creator Reki Kawahara back in 2002, which ran until 2008 when it was picked up and turned into the long-running manga series still in print today in one form or another. It arguably wasn’t until 2012, when the anime series was brought out, that it grabbed the attention of the international community with its premise; what if players get stuck in a game. The downside in this case, however, is if you die in-game, you die for real. The original series focuses on hero Kirito and his friends trying to beat the death game in order to gain freedom for them and all other players still left alive.

Variant Showdowns story centres on a new game, Cross Edge. A game that was supposedly designed by a middle school genius, and is plagued with two rumours. The first is that a mysterious player attacks others out of nowhere and losing to them means losing a portion of the loser's memories. Secondly, The players wear a hood pulled low over their eyes. The rumours catch the attention of series protagonist Kirito due to similarities between this player and the Laughing Coffin, a player-killer guild he fought in SAO. Kirito gathers his friends to play the game and investigate the rumours, but they are quickly targeted in a surprise attack.

Sword Art Online Variant Showdown will be available on the App Store and Google Play upon release, with pre-registration being available on the official website.