Bandai Namco Entertainment recently revealed their brand-new action RPG Echoes of Aincrad, scheduled to release on July 9 for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and on July 10 on Steam. The game puts a spin on the popular Sword Art Online franchise by making you, the player, a main character of the story. The title also features a unique “Death Game” mode inspired by the “in-game death means dying in real life” mechanic of SAO, where getting a game over results in permadeath and deletes all of your save data.
Recently, Famitsu interviewed series producer Yosuke Futami and Echoes of Aincrad head of production Yasuhiro Yahata about the new game, asking them what parts of the original story will be depicted in the game, and how many floors of Aincrad players will actually get to explore.
When asked about whether the game is specifically based on the SAO Progressive spin-off (which digs deeper into the story of Kirito and Asuna clearing each floor of Aincrad), the devs say – not exactly. As Futami explains, the team has incorporated many elements of Progressive into the game while basing it on the beginning of the Aincrad arc. That being said, according to the developers, Echoes of Aincrad will depict only the first and the second floor of the fictional world.
“In the original novel, the Aincrad arc ends with the 75th floor. But since Aincrad’s floors each span across the surface of around 10 square kilometers, if we hypothetically decided to recreate all 100 floors, it would take us around 10 years of development to achieve it,” Futami explains. “Of course, there’s no way we’d make players wait so long, so we decided to summarize the events of the first and the second floor. While an original story will unfold in the game, some episodes from the novel will be taking place in the background.”
Talking about the original approach to the story, Futami highlights how having “normal players” as the protagonists of the game will give the audience a fresh viewpoint of the Aincrad arc – especially when it comes to their perception of Kirito. While everybody knows Kirito is a “good guy,” the producer hints that, from the perspective of the game’s protagonists, he might be taking on more “villainous” role in the story.
On a related note, despite predicting a whopping 10 additional years to cover all floors of Aincrad, Futami says that the Echoes of Aincrad project was kicked off almost 7 years ago, with 4 years of actual development. “We started coming up with the concept of the game around the time the development of Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet had ended, but the project itself was kicked off around 2019. I think it was 2021 when the direction was decided and we actually started production, so I’d say that the actual development period for the game was around 4 years.”
Echoes of Aincrad is set to on July 9 release for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, with a Steam port coming on July 10.
I mean to be fair it isn’t the first game to make your original character the mc in sao game.
Integral factor does it.
Welcome back progresive at this point
This is so disappointing… I was hyping myself up finally a one to one sword art online! Just for my hopes and dreams to be squashed I’d be happy with even 50 floors but I need sword art online to be a real game not just the anime with stupid spin off retelling of the story videogames give us a real game for once!
I mean better getting that now than waiting an extra 10 years to get everything lmao.. and who knows maybe they’ll release the rest for free over time 😂
4 years for 2 floors and 10 for 100? Not likely
I mean, 90% of the game is back end. It’d probably take a month to create the maps, quest, and new enemies.
All the harder stuff is done
Do the developers know that they don’t have to release all of the 100 floors right away? And there should have been already an mmorpg anime style of this series ages ago
“It would take ten years to make”
So take the ten years? I find it so odd that this excuse comes up when games like Silksong and FF7R took that long and people LOVED it. Like if it was a new IP i would get it but they’ve made SAO games since like 2010 they know that it’ll sell, why not just put in that dev time?
There is an mmorpg version actually. Sao:Integral factor
If they really made this 100 floors and ecery floor is big enough that it can have like 5-6 towns or cities this game will gonna be the next big thing…….
But they need to make sure levelling up is hard AF it’s 100 floor after all… And no bullshit VIP players that increase their exp make it like OG old Ragnarok online so we can trade items for real money……
Yes. YES. Give us back the Poring island with the Ghostring teleporting after two hits, where you then look for it for 30 minutes not knowing that someone already killed it (and probably also got the card).
Please give me RO back. What a game.
And yet is singleplayer….
I agree with so many others. SAO, and so many other animes would make great RPGs that would rival Skyrim. If devs would be willing to put the time in..
I say they need to start now and get to work on a 10 floor dlc!
I mean… I would totally wait 10 years for a whole recreation of Aincrad in it’s entirety but I can respect the more focused scope.
The roblox Sword art online was soo good, ist like better than it? I would like to try it
POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON SERIES EACH HAS MORE THAN 100 FLOORS AND WAS MADE YEARS AGO!
Well they’ve had over 15 years so what’s the problem?
Only Floor 1 and Floor 2? Sick, so at most we’ll get to fight 2 floor bosses then, and one of them is going to be Illfang the Kobold Lord, which we’ve fought in pretty much all the other SAO games set in Aincrad…
I was excited for Bandai Namco to finally take a W with one of the SAO games (god knows they’ve made too many) but it looks like they just couldn’t help themselves. The whole appeal of SAO to begin with is the ascent from Floor 1 to 100, and you’re telling me I’ll only get to climb a single Floor? Yeah okay, time to wrap it up.
Which wouldn’t be much some modern game take 20 years or more for a 4th the content that game would have
100 floors in 10 years.
10floors in 1 year.
2 floors in 4 years???
(Even with all the mechanics they needed to make etc this would mean they spend less then 2months on the 2 floors meaning they could have easily given us more floors, if that 100 floors on 10 years is accurate which I don’t think it is. Just interview talk).
4 year literally no about making floor itself but all other elements like ui, design, fight mechanics, balance stuff, npc and etc. All harder stuff have they completed so floor is just a copy paste like that
I feel like they would have a big fan base either way if they had plans to make all 100 floors. They could take a note from other long story games like genshin impact and similar games by releasing a floor or two at a time with updates every so often
Welcome back progressive
I would rather wait ten years for the 100 floors, than have it now and only have 2 floors. This does not change the fact that I am buying it though.
So, If 10 years equals 100 floors, and the game’s been in development for 7 years, attributing only four years of “actual development”, shouldn’t there be 40 floors? How are only 2 floors done, in 7 years time? I feel like y’all could just use A.I. to create and modify all 100 floors, in less than one year. I pray that y’all will focus on building more floors, from now, until release, and y’all better release new floors, in DLC, until every floor gets finished! And each DLC better have at least 20 levels, also there should be at least 20 levels to begin with, at launch! Y’all have zero excuses to launch a game for SAO’s Aincrad, that’s been in the works for 7 years, with only two floor levels! This game has the potential to be great, but y’all are already ruining it with y’all’s greed, by selling the ultimate version of the game for $110.00 USD, with only two levels, so y’all can milk us dry, for everything we’re worth, with DLC, for the next 10 years or longer! Y’all think y’all are going to sell us DLC packs for $25 a pop, with only five new floors, every six months, and then sell them all combined for another $120, after they’ve all been released? Y’all are literally the epitome of greed!
Imagine they released unfinished version earlier and like in anime there is no exit button that would be cool
Well get to it
Why don’t they just make the first 25-40, release the game and drop floors monthly as they are finished?
Make no difference to me I will never ever pay 150 buck for a game, which is what my ps5 is saying it will cost. That just plain outrageses
Hollow Fragment is 76 floors to 100, either dev being lazy or the budget is not enough
Yet dot hack did what they could not with a world generator system. Sad. No pathetic.