Sword Art Online Alicization LycorisProducer Yousuke Futami held a short Periscope stream on May 1. Seeing the current state of emergency in Japan, this stream was in lieu of the usualSAOstreams focusing on the games of the franchise, and focused onAlicization Lycoris.OtherSAOgame producers will similarly do streams, around once time a week, focusing either onSAOALor the mobile games. Anyway, on the Periscope stream, Producer Futami answered some questions asked bySAOfans regardingAlicization Lycoris. He was asked about the game’s length, a possible Switch port, returning characters and a lot of other stuff.
First off, Producer Futami answered how long it takes to beatSword Art Online Alicization Lycoris. He said it’s a difficult question to answer, but it “takes around 50 to 60 hours to beat if you play normally” as in doing sidequests along the way. He added it’ll take you longer to do everything, and “if you only rush the main story it’ll be around 30 hours”. He saidSAOALis packed with optional quests and bosses, and how developing studio Aquria put a lot of effort in the optional content, so he hopes players will try it out.
At around 20 minutes in, Producer Futami was asked ifSword Art Online Alicization Lycoriscould get ported to Switch. He explained “I can’t tell you whether we’ll do it or not, whether it’s possible or not.”. He said to just wait and see, if they do it they’ll announce it, if they don’t they won’t. He can only give half answers like these to avoid players getting disappointed or giving false hopes. He was also asked about a Switch port ofSAO Hollow Fragment,and explained they did think about it, but game development costs a lot, including doing a port from one console to another. Long story short, while a PS4 port and PC port ofHollow Fragmentwere released, doing a Switch port isn’t possible for money reasons for now.
Other points brought up on stream:Â
SAOALshouldn’t be delayed again: The game’s current development plan is taking into account the current circumstances, so unless there’s a drastic change in the situation in Japan, it shouldn’t be delayed.
Alicization Lycorisand its original story in the second half of the game focuses a lot on developing Eugeo, Alice and Kirito.
A fan also asked if Rain will beSAOAL. Producer Futami said he cannot answer questions like these for now. But at the very least, it means it’s not impossible, just like howhe previously teased Silica. He also said to look forward to more information on the DLC, though they can’t reveal anything for now. He also mentioned they’re pretty much done developing thefirst part of the Premium Pass.Â
We also heard about howAlicization Lycoris' development began around four years ago, soon after the release ofHollow Realization.
Producer Futami also chatted about how he’d like to make a game based on the Unital Ring arc one day, but how that’s still far off in the future, how they need to finish adapting Alicization first, and while he’d like to work as Producer on a game like this, he’d rather let a younger developer do it. He also mentioned they’ll probably start thinking about doing something in 2022, as that’s when theSAOnovel and the Aincrad incident starts.
Producer Futami is really friendly and direct unlike most producers, and it showed on stream as he answered many other random questions. He chatted about his favorite scene inSAO Ordinal Scale, how all the game producers get along, etc. He regularly shares fun stories of his life as a Produceron his Twitter. The official SAO Twitter also started an hashtag#SAOã²ã¼ã 質åto ask him and the other producers questions about the SAO games, which they’ll answer in upcoming streams. Needless to say, they’ll probably only look at Japanese written questions, though Producer Futami does answer English questions sometimes on Twitter.
As a side note, short event gameplay sequences are being shown at the end of theSAO War of Underworldrebroadcast in Japan, and later shown on Twitter. Here’s one with best boy Eugeo:
Next week we’ll have one with Ronie and Tiese.
Sword Art Online Alicization Lycoris launches July 9 in Japan and July 10 worldwide on PC via Steam, PS4, and Xbox One.you’re able to read the latest story details here.Hopefully the pandemic and all will be done by then, sopreordering on Amazona July releasing game to support us isn’t a bad move in my book.
