Bandai Namco Entertainment have announced a delay for Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
While previously been stated as May 21st in Japan, and May 22nd in the Americas and Europe- this date has now changed. According to the official Japanese Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris website (via a pop-up which can be read separately here), the game has been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic (Translation: DualShockers). The western release date was also confirmed to be worldwide.
The message also includes an apology from producer Yousuke Futami, and that this was (in DualShockers’ words) “a decision Bandai Namco took when considering the safety of each and every person involved in SAOAL‘s development.”
The delay was also announced on Twitter, and Fatami issued his apology once again.
“As announced below, we have decided to postpone the launch of SAOAL as a result of putting the health and safety of everyone involved in this matter first. I’m really sorry for everyone who was looking forward to it.
Under the current production environment, we will build a production system that will carry out many updates even after the release date, and will create an environment where everyone can enjoy this work happily without anyone on the production team including domestic and overseas. So I would appreciate if you could wait until July 9th for a while …!”
Translation: Google Translate via Twitter
A new teaser has also been released on the official website, with the new release date. You can find that below.
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic (also known as COVID-19 officially, or Chinese Flu to others) has affected many worldwide, from businesses to public gatherings and events. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
This includes the postponement of GDC, and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, along with the cancellation of E3 2020 (including digital events), the physical event for Gamescom 2020, and Comiket 98.
We also reported on a Game Freak employee contracting the virus, along with EMS and Airmail shipments from Japan to the US ceasing– starting today.
The Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering are mapping the virus’ spread [1, 2]. As of this time of writing, there have been over 2.735 million total confirmed cases worldwide, and over 1.792 million active cases. There have been over 192,000 deaths, however over 751,000 people have made a “total recovery.”
Japan have had over 12,368 cases (10,546 active cases), 328 deaths, and 1,494 recoveries.
Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris launches July 9th in Japan, and July 10th worldwide, for Windows PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
