Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization to be released in America in 2016

Bandai's been killing it with all these confirmations of American releases of other Japanese franchises, such as God Eater (which was only previously released on PSP) and Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS-Force. Today, Bandai dropped another title for 2016, which is another Sword Art sequel.

We actually reported on Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization back in October when it was announced for Japan, and now we have confirmation that we'll be indeed getting here as well.

The new game will feature a brand new storyline where players enter a new VRMMORPG called Sword Art: Origin, which was created on the game's original servers and takes them back to Aincrad, once again setting the stage for new adventures through a dangerous virtual world.

This is actually the fourth game in the franchise, with Hollow Fragment on the Vita and PS4 actually including the very first PSP title built straight into it, and Lost Song being the third. While my colleague Andrew and myself loved Hollow Fragment, I was only lukewarm about Lost Song. While it made exploration more fun through flight, the combat system seemed to pale in comparison to its predecessors. While the trailer doesn't show the UI, which would give a much better clue as to the game's mechanics, the gameplay does look like it uses a more real time approach to combat like Lost Song. The characters and environments look leagues better though.

The game will release in 2016 on PS4 and the PS Vita.