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If it does, it's a very different genre altogether. For one, it'll likely be a tale told not from the eyes of a Teenager, which would probably make it very Seinen. For another, I'd think Kirito is heading for a path that puts him in Heartcliff's and Obereon's world, where the temptations facing him would likely be moral in nature, and some of the options quite grey. One could argue that ALO hinted at such a world. And the fact that I suspect Kirito is coming of age into a world that would hit a technological singularity in his life-time, and he likely would be on the front-lines in the journey towards that - being the proud co-owner of the first sentient A.I would do that, and if more advance A.Is like Yui or Alice start appearing, I'd imagine Kirito and Asuna would be very popular among them.
It's ironic when the former Lab Rat becomes the Scientist so to speak.
Can SAO go down that route? Probably, but it might make the days of Aincrad look simple instead- indeed, Alicization isn't as straight forward as Aincrad. I think if the author ends after Alicization, it'll be because it'll be hard to write a Technological/Business/Political Intrigue Sci-fi thriller well. Also, probably because Aincrad is still a not fully told story- were it as self contained and cohesive a narrative as Fairy Dance or the Death gun Arc, it definitely would have stretched probably more than a dozen volumes.
Speaking of which, I think it is interesting that readers who know of how the Aincrad arc ends also wants to know the journey itself, not just the last phase of it.
Mind you, I'm talking through the lenses of someone who reads the beginning and ending, before deciding whether I want to read the Journey.
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