'Sword Art Online' Season 3 Reveals New Key Artwork

While Sword Art Online fans have been enjoying the new spin-off series, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, they still have much to look forward to in the year to come as the third season of the series is releasing some time this year.

Promoting the upcoming third season, which adapts the Alicization arc from the original light novels, the series has released a new key visual that depicts a young Kirito with Alice, and a mysterious blond boy who looks exactly like Kirito.

Another look at some official artwork of the Alicization anime! from r/swordartonline

Premiering this October, the third season is set to adapt the Alicization arc, which takes part in Volumes 9-18 of Kawahara's light novel series. In 2026, Kirito is offered a job with Rath. He's asked to work for the firm in order to test a new type of FullDive equipment known as the Soul Translator. But Rath had no plans to make a new FullDive gaming console. Instead, the firm is working to make a new military AI.

Bringing Kirito in to act as a human influence on AI, he finds that Rath had already trapped a child's soul in the machinery. When Kirito was brought out of the machine, Rath blocked his memories of his time in Underworld, but Kirito learns there are many who want him to keep quiet about his time with the AI, a child named Alice.

Directing the third season for A-1 Pictures is Manabu Ono, with Shingo Adachi, Gou Suzuki, Tomoya Nishiguchi handling the character designs. The voice cast for the season so far includes Yoshitugu Matsuoka as Kirito, Haruka Tomatsu as Asuna, Ai Kayano as Alice Schuberg, and Nobunaga Shimazaki as Eugeo.

For those unfamiliar with Sword Art Online, the series was originally created by Reki Kawahara with illustrations provided by abec. The series follows a boy named Kirito after he and thousands of gamers get trapped in a virtual reality video game known as Sword Art Online. The gamers must band together to defeat the game's final level to escape, but Kirito and his guild learn there is more behind their prison than they were originally told.

The series began as a series of light novels published through Dengeki Bunko in 2009, and has been adapted into eight different manga series by ASCII Media Works and Kadokawa. The series has been licensed for an English language release by Yen Press, and has been adapted into an anime series by A-1 Pictures.

Its first season aired in 2012 and ran for 25 episodes, while its second season, Sword Art Online II, aired in 2014 and ran for 24 episodes. The series currently gearing up for its next big arc in the light novel series, "Unitial Ring," and the next season of the anime is set to adapt "Alicization.