Sword Art Online: War of Underworld Review

Sword Art Online War of Underworld cover

EDITORIAL REVIEW

CONFLICT REACHES ITS LARGEST SCALE

War of Underworld expands Alicization into a full-scale conflict over the future of the Underworld. With the Human Empire facing the forces of the Dark Territory, the arc moves between battlefield strategy, political ambition, and the private cost of fighting for a world that many outsiders do not even recognise as real. Its scale is enormous, but its strongest moments remain focused on individual choices.

Kirito’s absence changes the centre of the story. Instead of relying on him to solve every crisis, the arc gives Asuna, Alice, and the people of the Underworld space to act. Their decisions are shaped by loyalty, grief, fear, and the knowledge that victory may still leave the world permanently changed. This makes the conflict feel less like a tournament and more like a test of collective courage.

ALICE, ASUNA, AND LEADERSHIP

Alice’s journey becomes one of the arc’s defining threads. She is not simply a powerful warrior; she is a person forced to understand responsibility while being treated as a symbol by competing sides. Asuna’s arrival brings another kind of strength, grounded in empathy and resolve. Their different backgrounds create a useful contrast between defending a home and choosing to stand beside people whose world is not your own.

THE DARK TERRITORY

The Dark Territory gives the story an opportunity to complicate the idea of an enemy army. Not every combatant shares the same motives, and several characters reveal that inherited labels can hide ordinary hopes, loyalties, and doubts. The arc does not always give every side equal time, but its best scenes show that war becomes harder to understand when the people across the battlefield are allowed to be human.

MEMORY, SACRIFICE, AND CONSEQUENCE

War of Underworld continues Alicization’s argument that digital lives deserve moral consideration. Memory becomes both a weapon and a source of continuity, while sacrifice is never completely abstract because the Underworld’s people experience loss as the end of a real life. The dramatic scale can sometimes overwhelm the quieter character work, yet the central idea remains powerful: a world becomes worth saving when its people can imagine a future beyond the rules imposed on them.

WHY IT MATTERS

War of Underworld is the payoff to Alicization’s questions about authority, artificial life, and freedom. It delivers a larger action story while shifting attention toward Alice, Asuna, and the Underworld community. Its uneven pacing does not erase its ambition. At its best, the arc presents victory not as one hero’s achievement, but as the result of many people deciding that another future is possible.