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Players play as unnamed player in Aincrad fighting alongside Kirito, Asuna Bandai Namco Entertainment announced a new VR project titled Sword Art Online Replication at Tokyo Game Show 2017 on Friday. The game will take place in Aincrad during the events of the first season of the anime. Players of the VR game will play as an unnamed player (pictured below left) stuck in Aincrad, alongside a heroine named Mist (pictured below right) whom he must protect. The VR game will feature players fighting alongside characters Kirito and Asuna. Bandai Namco Entertainment is accepting applications until November 15 to test the game at an event held at Tokyo Sky Tree Solamachi from December 8 to December 10. Selected persons will be notified between November 16-30. Reki Kawahara's original Sword Art Online light novel series previously inspired the "Sword Art Online: The Beginning" VR demonstration last year. Bandai Namco Entertainment announced a new console game in the franch

New game takes place in Aincrad, stars Ari Ozawa as new heroine Koharu Bandai Namco Entertainment announced at Tokyo Game Show 2017 on Saturday that it is developing a new smartphone game in the Sword Art Online franchise titled Sword Art Online: Integral Factor. The iOS and Android online RPG will be free to play, but in-game items can cost extra. Bandai Namco Entertainment hasn't yet revealed a release window for the game. The game takes place in 2022 during the Aincrad arc of Reki Kawahara's original light novel series. Players play as their own avatars, and along with their partner Koharu (voiced by Ari Ozawa), work to clear the 100 levels of Aincrad. The game is accepting pre-registration and closed beta test applications. Source: Dengeki Online (Tekeon)

Simulation RPG slated for 2018 A panel at the Fantasia Bunko Festival 2017 event on Saturday announced that the Full Metal Panic! franchise is getting a PlayStation 4 game titled Full Metal Panic! Tatakau Who Dares Wins (Full Metal Panic! Fight Who Dares Wins). B.B. Studio is developing the simulation RPG with a slated release in 2018. Bandai Namco Entertainment will publish the game. The panel also screened the game's first video, which featured English narration and Japanese subtitles. The Full Metal Panic! Invisible Victory television anime series will premiere in spring 2018. The anime's first season is getting a three-film director's cut version. Full Metal Panic! centers around a mercenary group called Mithril on a parallel Earth in which the Cold War did not end in 1991. The original Full Metal Panic! light novel series debuted in 1998, and Fujimi Shobo published the series' 12th and final novel in the main series in 2010. The novels have more than 11 millio

"Usurping Berry team battle" game features 4-vs-4 team matches This year's 49th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine revealed on Monday that One Piece is getting a new smartphone game titled One Piece Bounty Rush. The "usurping Berry team battle" game will be free to play with some in-game items costing extra. The official website for the One Piece franchise also revealed a logo, and revealed that the game will launch in 2018. Bandai Namco Entertainment also opened a website for the game on Monday. The game will feature four-vs-four team matches in a treasure contest. The goal of each timed match will be to gather the most Berries. Characters in the game will be categorized as one of five different classes. Weekly Shonen Jump specified that players can play with other players worldwide in the game. The "Jump Festa '18" event on December 16-17 will feature the game. Bandai Namco Entertainment previously released the One Piece Treasure Cruise, One Piece Thous

Bandai Namco Entertainment opened a countdown website on Friday at the "mhaoj.bn-ent.net/" URL. The website features an image of a microwave, and when clicked, the image changes showing an egg coming out of the microwave that is slightly cracked. The countdown will end on December 4. While the website doesn't specify that the countdown is related to Kōhei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia manga, early on in the manga, the protagonist Izuku Midoriya uses a mental image of an egg in a microwave as a way to control his Quirk. Source: Dengeki Online Disclosure: Anime Consortium Japan Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.