Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-117.201.107.16-20180422144115/@comment-2601:48:C600:58BE:859:4321:DC94:A9D5-20180704145927

It was made clear from all of the promotional trailers and by simply looking up the spin-off series on wiki that Kirito was never going to be featured as anything more than an oral reference or cameo since he would only detract attention from the main characters. If you thought otherwise, you were merely forced your expections on an outcome that was improbable to happen. Besides, it wouldn't make sense for him to make an appearance given the timeline of GGO:A and the fact that Kirito left GGO immediately after the Death Gun incident was resolved and never came back to it because it wasn't his kind of game.