GungHo announced today they will add multiple Sword Art Online characters to the Japanese version of Puzzle & Dragons, with a new collaboration event. The event will start on November 5th and end on November 19th.

The characters to be added are main hero Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, Klein, Agil, Sachi, and Alice. Alice is one of the new characters introduced in the Alicization arc of the original novel, whose anime adaptation just started a few weeks ago. Alicization is the longest story arc by far in Sword Art Online, and also the one I like the least. I actually think it would have been better if the story ended with the Mother Rosario arc, with the story from Alicization being made into a brand new novel.

Both Sword Art Online and Puzzle & Dragons are extremely popular, so it's a bit weird that a collaboration event between the two didn't happen until now.

GungHo released some sample illustrations for each character. You can check them below. The illustrations for Kirito, Asuna and Sinon correspond to their ultimate evolutions.

Usually, events and collaborations in the Japanese version of Puzzle & Dragons are brought over to the western one after some time, so people into the game but only with a western server account should be able to get Kirito and his friends soon.

Puzzle & Dragons is currently available for iOS and Android. The latest Sword Art Online game for home consoles, Sword Art Online Fatal Bullet, is currently available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. You can read our review of the game here. The game will also be ported to Switch on January 18th.