5 Best Sword Art Online Games of All Time, Ranked

Sword Art Online is a series of sci-fi fantasy games adapted from a light novel series of the same title. There’s also an anime series (of the same name) with several excellent seasons for anime fans to enjoy. The game, just like the anime, tells the story of a multiplayer virtual reality world where players are trapped and forced to play deadly games. You can equip various weapons and further customize your skills and abilities. All along, battling against your opponents to be the last man standing.

It’s similar to films like Alice in Borderland on Netflix, 28 Days Later, or The Purge, with gripping and well-written elements from each. So, if you enjoy these types of films or anime in general, you’ll find a haven by playing Sword Art Online. But where’s the best place to start? Which Sword Art Online game takes the win? Among seven Sword Art Online games released so far, here are the best Sword Art Online games of all time.

5. Sword Art Online: Project Alicization Lycoris (2020)

Let’s begin with Sword Art Online: Project Alicization Lycoris, culminating in seamless, action-packed real-time battles and your favorite Sword Art Online characters. Combat fuses swordplay and sacred arts to create intense, fast-paced sequences with high adrenaline levels. You’ll have a set of abilities to shift between, including aerial juggling and chain combos. Also, unlike Sword Art Online’s sword skills, Project Alicization Lycoris features “Secret Moves,” limited to a sword and its durability.

By far, Project Alicization itself carries the crown home for the best innovative game ever made. On the surface, it’s a top-secret project with ties to the Japanese government to create a ‘bottom up' highly adaptive AI. The project was formed from the acronym A.L.I.C.E, Artificial Labile Intelligent Cybernated Existence.

The first time stepping foot in the Underworld ignites a dash of joy with its mysterious, vast, expansive world filled with secret magical relics. However, experiencing the technology and imagining its impact in the real world is another wholesome experience on its own. Today, AI aims to create machines capable of synthesizing human emotion. While in Project Alicization Lycoris, the folks in the shadowy company behind ALICE have cracked the code, which speaks volumes for anyone curious about AI evolving into highly adaptive beings.

4. Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization (2016)

Next up is Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, which pays tribute to past games, adopting a massive open world drawn from Sword Art: Online Origin’s world. So, if you’re looking to soothe nostalgia, Hollow Realization is the best game to play. It mashes the 100 floors from Origin into one massive open world. And leaves nothing to chance, including remastering environments linked to some pretty infamous traumatic past experiences.

Additionally, Hollow Realization adds extra spice to the series with over 300 NPCs you can recruit to fight your cause. Admittedly, deciding who to pick and who to leave behind is overwhelming. Yet, each hour spent building relationships with your chosen party members and forging ahead with them in battle proves worth every penny.

3. Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment (2014)

Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment was a fresh concept in the series that featured 100 floors of the Aincrad world. Each floor boasts beautiful textures with an attractive art style. And they offer a diverse range of missions to encourage climbing further up.

Also, players are unable to access the underlying 75 floors once completed, which encourages taking the time to be thorough, appreciating every nook and cranny of this universe as they go. Reach the 100th floor, and you’ll have cleared the game for real this time. All the while enjoying immersive exploration and addictive combat over hours of anime adventuring.

2. Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet (2018)

Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet came close to taking the crown for the best Sword Art Online game of all time, home. That’s because, unlike all the games on this list, Fatal Bullet allows players to create a character of their own. Games of this type feel most immersive when it’s actually you playing in the game. And so, original character creation is a new addition fans of the series highly praise.

Furthermore, players could blow enemies to thy kingdom come with firearms instead of just cutting through flesh with swords and magic. Oh, and rather than directly adapt the light novel series and anime storyline, Fatal Bullet features up to three alternate timelines that tell completely fresh secondary turns of events. Lastly, the player can make decisions that affect the story's outcome. What more can one ask for?

1. Sword Art Online: Lost Song (2015)

Sword Art Online: Lost Song picks up where Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment left off. Having survived the latter’s tragic ordeal, Kirito and friends embark on a new adventure in the new virtual reality game: Alfheim Online. Soon, they explore a group of islands called Svart, whose environments draw inspiration from Norse Mythology. And during the thick of it, they compete with a large guild, Shamrock, for the top prize.

It’s a wondrous adventure that sets the pace for the following games. Each character has an interesting background that informs their personality and motive. Several twists and turns throw you off the scent of backstabbers, while others create a newfound loyalty to a character.

While other games in the series have real-world consequences of dying in-game, Lost Song focuses, instead, on strengthening AI-human relationships. So, you could at least breathe a sigh of relief, knowing things would not become as dire as they have in the past games. Despite the tangling of their goals and missions along the way, Kirito and his friends finally unite to fight the final boss, Lost Song, as one.

So, what’s your take? Do you agree with our best Sword Art Online games of all time? Which Sword Art Online game piques your interest the most? Let us know over on our socials here.