Originally written by Reki Kawahara as a web novel back in 2002 to 2008 the popular manga and anime Sword Art Online is based on a near-future scenario where gamers would be trapped in a virtual reality world, forced to exist there and fight their way to the top to eventually be allowed to escape. You may have guessed already, but that near future has now arrived with the manga having set the beginning of the story in 2022. To mark the occasion a Twitter account has been created which makes the whole thing feel a little too real.
The fan-made account, which already has 77.2 thousand followers, has set out to bring us “news” as if it were really happening, matching the timeline of the game as we see in the manga and anime. In the story, the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (VRMMORPG) named Sword Art Online was released in 2022 after beta-testing was completed, and yesterday would have marked the day the game launched with 10,000 players logging in for the first time, only to be trapped there.
The account started a little earlier than that though, and played out the marketing strategy, building up hype for the “game” as it were, starting off with an announcement about the beta-testing, which the main character, Kazuto “Kirito” Kirigaya, was a part of.
It then gave notice when the testing was over, giving a release date for the final product.
They continued by announcing when the game was available for purchase, reminding fans to buy before the game went live, and pinning the tweet that announces the game has begun. This tweet came out on Nov. 6 at 13:00, JST.
What followed next is where the story begins. In the anime, not long after they have logged in and played around for a little, gamers find that there is no exit option, no way for them to get out of the game. The creator of the world and the VR equipment NerveGear, Akihiko Kayaba, appears and announces that they are trapped there, that dying in the game means death in real life and anyone whose NerveGear is removed in real life will also die.
The Twitter account responds to this also, releasing this tweet nearly hours after the log-in announcement.
The Twitter account then starts to issue warnings to not log in and not remove the headset.
Within hours the event has already been given a name and forces have been mobilized.
Of course, this is all just a lot of fun for fans, given that none of this is real, but plenty has been happy to play along and dive into the fantasy (the imagination being the best gaming tool we own). Some jokingly lamented the situation.
Whereas others acted exactly how we imagine some would act in real life, really stupidly.
And of course, we cannot forget the “fake news” crowd that we are painfully aware would also exist if this were to happen.
Much like how we have caught up to many “future” scenarios from past movies and shows, such as Back to the Future Part II which was set in what they believed 2015 would look like. Well, 2015 has been and gone and we don’t yet have fully functioning hoverboards like that yet. Similarly, the events of Blade Runner were set in 2019, and we have yet to experience robotics that advanced, or commercially available flying cars for that matter.
Much like the above examples, we have yet to experience true VR, despite major leaps forward in the technology. We can wear the goggles and use the remotes, but fully entering a virtual world, one that is connected to our senses in such a way, is still a way off yet. For now, this Twitter account can make us feel a little bit like the show is real, we can just pretend we are the lucky ones that didn’t enter Aincrad and can simply watch the news unfolds.
If you have no idea what is going on and are utterly confused by the whole thing you can educate yourself by watching Sword Art Online available on Hulu, Disney Plus, and Crunchyroll.
