Echoes of Aincrad Preview: Already an Anime-Styled Single-Player Action-RPG Delight

Echoes of Aincrad Preview: Already an Anime-Styled Single-Player Action-RPG Delight Southeast Asia Home Amazon Deals Pro-tips by Codashop PC PS4 Xbox One Nintendo Mobile Entertainment EsportsMoreSearch Home More About IGN SEAContactAdvertisePressUser AgreementPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyRSSIGN Southeast Asia is operated under license by Media Prima Digital Sdn Bhd (199901014126) Change Region United States United Kingdom Australia Africa Adria Serbian/Croatian Adria Slovenian Benelux / Dutch Brazil China / 中国 Czechia / Slovakia France Germany Greece / Ελλάδα Hungary India Israel Italy / Italia Japan / 日本 Korea / 한국 Latin America Middle East – English Middle East – الأوسطالشرق Nordic Poland Portugal Southeast Asia Spain / España Turkey / Türkiye world.ign.com Register / Login Register / Login Login Register Echoes of Aincrad Preview: Already an Anime-Styled Single-Player Action-RPG Delight The only “massive multi” things here are the wasps. This post might contain affiliation links. If you buy something through this post, the publisher may get a share of the sale. By Will Borger  Updated: March 6, 2026, 7 a.m. Related reads:MapleStorySEA Celebrates 20th Anniversary With Massive Summer Updates Sometimes, you go in blind on a new game. That’s how it was for me with Sword Art Online: Echoes of Aincrad. I’ll be honest with y’all: I’m not a Sword Art Online guy. I haven’t read the manga, seen the anime, theatrical films or live action adaptation, or played any of the games. My only knowledge of Sword Art Online is that the characters are trapped in an MMO, and if you die in the game, you die in real life. Dun dun dun! That’s a pretty compelling basis for a manga or an anime, but it’s particularly interesting as a video game set in a video game. As it turns out, not knowing much about Sword Art Online made me the perfect guy to sit down with Echoes of Aincrad because, well… it’s a little different from what’s come before.Before we dive into that, let’s take a quick step back and establish a few things first. Aside from a short section of the tutorial that we don’t want to spoil, I didn’t really see any of Echoes of Aincrad’s story. Instead, my time with Aincrad was spent doing a quest called The Lost Log. But that doesn’t mean I can’t talk about some of the narrative decisions this single-player action-RPG makes. Maybe the biggest departure for the series is that, for the first time in its history, you’re not going to play as a pre-existing character who is part of the story. Instead, you’ll make your own. When I asked Sword Art Online Game Series Producer Yosuke Futami why they made the switch, he told me there were a couple reasons. First, most games in the series have been set in the middle of Sword Art Online’s story, which required players to have at least some working knowledge of the series. Echoes of Aincrad doesn’t, and Futami hopes that means that it will be more approachable for folks who aren’t already fans. Second, he’s hoping that by putting the player into the game world as their own character, they’ll be able to experience the story of being trapped in a death game themselves, not vicariously. Neat. For the first time in Sword Art Online’s history, you’re not going to play as a pre-existing character who is part of the story. Instead, you’ll make your own.My journey started in The Town of Beginnings. I spent a little time running, getting a feel for the place, and finding some elven statues that taught me some of Aincrad’s lore. The Town of Beginnings feels like, well… a starting town in an MMO. It’s got that dense-yet-artificial feel of a town in a video game, which pulls double duty in a video game set in a video game because NPCs feeling like NPCs here is a feature, not a bug. The town also shows off how utterly gorgeous Echoes of Aincrad is. This is a good-looking video game. Like… damn.After seeing the town, I teleported to a nearby terminal (you can teleport any time you’re in town), picked up a quest, and then teleported to my chest to change up my loadout and level up. You see, Echoes of Aincrad started me with a sword-and-board build, and I decided immediately that I would not be doing that because it just didn’t feel like me. I opted for a greatsword and some new gear instead, and spent my growth points to maximize what I wanted to do (meaning: hit things with a big sword).More like thisOpen Back Headphones: A Sound Experience Like No OtherOne of the neat things Echoes of Aincrad does is reward you for hitting certain milestones as you level up – generally once you hit five point increments. Getting my Dex to 5, for instance, boosted my sword skill damage by 3%, while hitting 10 bumped that to 5%. It’s easy to play an RPG and feel like individual levels don’t do much to make you stronger, but every time I got a new level or hit a new milestone in my time with Echoes of Aincrad, I felt it – something Futami confirmed was intentional when I asked him about it. And in Echoes of Aincrad, you can reset your parameters whenever you want. That isn’t typical of Sword Art Online as a setting, but it makes Echoes of Aincrad more accessible to newcomers and encourages you to experiment with your build until you find something you like. If you ask me, that rules.Once I was kitted out good and proper, it was time to go out into the world. Echoes of Aincrad is set in an MMO, but it’s a single-player game. When you go out, though, you’re not alone. You can select a companion to go with you. I had my choice of three: Iori, a healer: the tankier Wyzeman; and Argo, who operates in more of a utility/support role. I went with Wyzeman. Once we were in the field, how we proceeded was up to us. The map would tell us where we needed to go, but I could only see some of it. I’d have to unlock the rest as we traveled.Our first enemies were wolves, boars, and kobolds, all perfect for getting used to Echoes of Aincrad’s combat system. A lot of what’s here is stuff you’ve seen before. You’ve got a guard, light and heavy attack chains that you can alternate between on the fly, special attacks, and your partner’s abilities (Iori’s, for instance, creates a circle that heals you if you stand in it). You’ll also open up additional attacks if you dodge at the right time or manage to parry, as you do, and some of them are pretty cinematic. Fancy.What makes Echoes of Aincrad cool is how dangerous everything feels. Standard enemies can and will kill you if you’re not paying attention, especially early on, and they’re not exactly the forgive and forget type: they’ll follow you for a long time if you pick a fight with them. And they’re all different. Kobolds will block your attacks and retreat and try to blind you. If they do, the screen darkens and is filled with static. It’s a great effect that does exactly what it says: makes it a lot harder to se