Sword Art Online is a fictional virtual reality MMO game that was formed on the basis of a popular series of Japanese light novels and an anime series of the same name. While there have been Sword Art Online video games released before, there hasn't ever been anything like this newly-announced project from IBM Japan.

What sets this project apart is that, unlike previous games based on the franchise, Sword Art Online: The Beginning will actually be a VR MMO game, played by wearing a VR headset. Currently, IBM is accepting applications to play the game at a special event on March 18 and March 20 in Tokyo, with 208 winners being chosen at random from the pool of applicants.

Supposedly, players will be scanned so that they will essentially be playing digital versions of themselves, and all 208 winners will be playing alongside one another in the virtual space created by IBM. The website refers to the event as an "alpha test" and is being used as a means to showcase the potential of IBM Cognitive Computing in the realm of gaming.

This is interesting for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that one of the major plot elements of Sword Art Online is that a crazed video game creator rigs the fictional game (and all of the VR headsets used to play the game) so that players are unable to log out. The only way for players to be free of their VR prison to is to defeat the game's final boss, with the catch being that if a player dies in the game, they die in real life as well when their VR headset fries their brain.

So, who's ready to sign up? So far, the trailer for the project on YouTube is filled with jokes about the potential "dangers" of a real-world Sword Art Online.

"I can finally get a coma in an actual mmo ?!: D" writes one commenter, while another writes, "if it has a log out button I am quitting due to not being true to source material."

You can check out the official trailer for the project below, or head over to the project page to learn more.