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Japanime Games announced that they will launch a Kickstarter to fund the production of a board game based on Sword Art Online. Though a specific launch date hasn’t been announced, the campaign is slated to launch later this month.
Seiji Kanai, who designed games like Love Letter and R-Rivals, will be helming the project, which is officially titled Sword Art Online the Board Game: Sword of Fellows.
The game will be set in the virtual world of Aincrad. Players will be tasked with with escaping the realm, while taking on baddies using a variety of equipment cards, potions, chain attacks, and more.
Japanime Games will work with Arclight Games and Kadokawa to produce the final product, with the goal of releasing in July.
Sword Art Online is a multi-million dollar franchise, which spans light novels, video games, anime, manga, toys, and other products. The series, which began its life as a web novel by Reki Kawahara, made its public début in 2009 as a light novel (with illustrations by abec) under ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko imprint. To date, nineteen volumes have been released.
Since the novel’s release, nine ten manga adaptations, several light novel spinoffs, a pair of anime series, and TV special Sword Art Online: Extra Edition were produced.
Tomohiko Ito (Erased, Silver Spoon) directed all three anime titles at A-1 Pictures, with Shingo Adachi (Wagnaria!!) providing character designs.
Anime film Sword Art Online the Movie -Ordinal Scale hit Japanese theaters on February 18. The film will open in North America on March 9.
Aniplex of America currently holds the domestic rights to the Sword Art Online franchise in North America. They currently offer the series on Blu-Ray, as well as numerous streaming outlets. The series also aired on Adult Swim’s Toonami block in 2015.
Source: Otaku USA (Thanks to L.B. Bryant for the tip!)
