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Echoes of Aincrad is going to be an outlier for Sword Art Online games in that it lets us actually feel like we’re dealing with the SAO MMORPG situation as ourselves and going through an original story instead of retreading Kirito and Asuna’s footsteps. It’s a novel approach, and I felt a welcome one! When I heard about the concept, I secretly hoped it might feel a bit like the CyberConnect 2 .hack games. Not to mention, seeing constant takes on Kirito and Asuna’s stories, even if new arcs of the anime, manga, and light novel are being adapted, can involve some fatigue setting in. After getting to spend some time on the first floor and second floor in a hands-on preview, a lot of what I saw felt pretty encouraging.
Echoes of Aincrad puts players in a situation that isn’t all that dissimilar from a lot of Sword Art Online named characters as they return to SAO for the full launch after the beta. Our character took part, as did some of their in-game friends like an individual named Iori. So as my experience began, I was going through some apparent temple ruins on a journey to the Town of Beginnings. The initial monsters there were some spiders, nothing major, and honestly ample crafting materials appeared. Once I reached a first major encounter room with quite a few spiders all showing up and attacking at once, Iori appeared to join my on my quest to the city and new life in Aincrad. (In standard mode and not the Death Game Mode that adds optional permadeath to make it feel more true to the actual experience.)
This first floor basically felt like an introduction and refresher of what to expect. After all, since this is a retelling of the original arc through fresh individuals’ eyes, it’s a handy way to get reacquainted. We see our avatar meet with others in the Town of Beginnings and learn that NerveGear and SAO creator Akihiko Kayaba locked everyone currently online into the game until someone beats the 100 Aincrad floors. If you die in-game, you die in real life. While I did have a limited experience of the story during my session, going through that as an avatar that is supposed to be “me” and with new “friends” like the established Iori and seeing that shift that reveals who everyone is ends up being a lot.
I did get to see how this affects gameplay too. Echoes of Aincrad differs from other SAO games we pretty much follow in Kirito and Asuna’s footsteps. There’s more of an exploration element, from what I saw, with my journeys through the parts of the first and second floors that I saw involving entirely new-to-me spots and discoveries to possibly find treasure chests, enemies, or materials for crafting. I did appreciate that while facing opponents even in the not-Death Game Mode might feel a little intimidating due to the “unknown” sometimes, there are failsafes regarding deep water and falling that wouldn’t penalize us for a wrong move or knockback during combat.
As for combat, it felt pretty solid in these early Echoes of Aincrad moments and like a true sort of SAO MMORPG. We’re limited to the same six weapons as in the base game, and I had access to Horizontal Slash, Slanted Slash, and Vertical Slash right away. The standard light and heavy attacks both felt like they carried weight, but like they were different at the same time. Essentially, even though I was coming to this completely unaware and for the first time, I could feel myself building combos pretty easily and didn’t have issues with evasion in the build I played on. This felt especially critical once I got to the part of the second floor that I got to see, as the Raging Mountain Bao appeared as a common enemy and was quite large, and being able to dash in and out to strike, then evade, felt necessary to deal with even that basic baddie.
I will admit that, in the preview session, some elements of Echoes of Aincrad did frustrate me even though it does feel like it is getting the general SAO experience right. While you can set your skills in the field, you can’t change your actual weapons unless you’re in a base town and using a Chest Orb. I could understand this if you don’t actually have an extra weapon in your inventory, but there would be times I’d pick one up and it just… sat there because I couldn’t swap until I found a point where I could use a camp site and do something like fast travel back to a safe space. That approach to equipment management didn’t even strike me as being “true” to MMORPGs, since even those don’t limit us like that. Given that my hands-on time was limited, I even avoided more frequent visits to a town. This meant I didn’t get to test out all the weapon types and focused on the way of the sword.
But while that is an annoying element, Echoes of Aincrad feels like a fresh take on an SAO game so far. It personalizes the experience. Also, since it involves original characters, it offers more opportunities for different sorts of gameplay to appear.
The Sword Art Online game Echoes of Aincrad will come to the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on July 10, 2026, the original SAO anime series is on Crunchyroll, and Yen Press handles manga, audiobooks, and light novels based on the series.
