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Aincrad - Version 7 vs Version 8
Jun 21, 2026, 06:16 PM
Updated the Floor 1 boss note to reflect the demo confirming Illfang the Kobold Lord
Jul 22, 2026, 02:09 AM
Added the Labyrinth chamber structure, dungeon randomisation rules, and the named field regions across both playable floors
11Aincrad is the flying castle at the centre of the Sword Art Online universe, a hundred-floor structure that the original players of the MMO were trapped inside when the death game began. Echoes of Aincrad depicts only the first two floors.22Scope in Echoes of Aincrad44Series producer Yosuke Futami has said that fully rebuilding all hundred floors would take roughly ten years of development, which is why this entry focuses on the opening two floors at high fidelity instead of a shallower pass at the full castle.66Floors in the Game99Floor 1 - Town of Beginnings. The starting floor, with the Town of Beginnings as its hub.Floor 2 - Urbus. The second floor, with Urbus as its hub.1111Clearing a Floor1313In the Sword Art Online fiction, progressing up Aincrad requires defeating the floor's boss. Echoes of Aincrad preserves that structure. The Floor 1 boss is Illfang the Kobold Lord, confirmed in the free demo as the guardian at the top of the first floor's labyrinth; he is also the Floor 1 boss in the source material the game retells.1515A Hundred-Floor Floating Castle1717Aincrad is the floating castle at the heart of Sword Art Online, made up of one hundred stacked floors. When the official launch turns into the death game, the logout function is disabled and everyone inside is trapped in the castle. The only way out is to clear every one of its hundred floors, all the way to the top. Dying inside the game or having a headset forcibly removed in the real world also ends the player's real life, which is the weight every climb carries from the first step onward.1919Each floor is presented as its own self-contained world. Environments, climates, dungeons, towns, villages, and monster populations vary dramatically between floors, so a party can finish a lush field floor and step onto a stone terrace floor where almost nothing looks the same. That variety is part of why rebuilding the whole castle at high fidelity is framed as a long-term project rather than something one game can do on its own.2121Floors Covered by This Entry2323Echoes of Aincrad covers only the first two floors of the castle: Floor 1, anchored by the Town of Beginnings, and Floor 2, anchored by the mountain city of Urbus. The developers have been clear that this is a deliberate starting point, not the whole climb.2525Rather than rushing through all one hundred floors in a single game, the team built the opening two floors with a lot of density behind them. Main story content is described as roughly thirty hours long, with another twenty or so hours of side quests and exploration content layered on top, and further postgame activities for players who want to keep going after credits. The stated plan is to continue the climb across future entries if this first step is well received, eventually covering every floor through multiple games instead of one oversized release.2727That framing also sets expectations for the scope of each floor inside this game. Floor 1 is not a tutorial corridor and Floor 2 is not a bonus area. Both are built out as full regions with their own towns, villages, field zones, and dungeons, which is why the two-floor scope still maps to a full-length role-playing experience.2929Towns, Villages, and Safe Areas3131Settlements scattered across each floor are the anchor points for day-to-day play. The Town of Beginnings is the starting hub on Floor 1 and is where the death game speech reunites the main character with their former beta acquaintance. Smaller settlements like Horunka Village sit out in the surrounding wilds and tie into side content that the player unlocks by investigating points of interest across the map. Urbus fills the same hub role once the party reaches Floor 2.3333Towns contain the quest board, shops, the blacksmith, and the other services players need to prepare for an outing. Equipment changes and level-up allocation cannot be done while exploring, so leaving a town is a deliberate commitment for which the party needs to be prepared. Between towns, scattered Safe Areas let players recover HP, replenish healing crystals, fast travel back to previously visited locations, and use the area as a respawn point if they are defeated in the wild.3535Safe Areas also show up faintly in the overworld as thin pillars of light, even when the surrounding map is still hidden. That gives players a landmark to aim for in a new region, though actually reaching a Safe Area for the first time requires clearing the nearby enemies. Once activated, a Safe Area reveals a portion of the surrounding map and locks enemies out of its immediate zone.3737The Overworld and Exploration3939Each floor is treated as one large connected map that is unlocked in pieces as the party takes on quests. Quests come in field and dungeon varieties, and the main story tends to pull players into new regions while side content sends them back through areas they have already mapped. The map for unexplored territory is hidden by default, so players rely on what they can see in the environment until they activate a Safe Area that reveals the local area.4141Exploration is framed as risk-reward rather than a tourist mode. Enemies respawn whenever a Safe Area is activated, so clearing a path does not keep it clear forever. Aggro is sticky: if an enemy notices the party and is not taken down, it will chase them across the map, and nearby enemies often notice the commotion and join the fight. Some foes summon reinforcements on top of that. The intended lesson is that running away is rarely a free escape, and planning a route, loadout, and item supply before leaving town matters as much as the fights themselves. The underlying mechanics are covered in more depth under the combat system article.4343Field Gimmicks and Sealing Barriers4545Beyond Safe Areas and aggro, the field itself is dotted with obstacles that shape a route. Some paths are blocked by gimmicks that have to be cleared with a matching item: rocks broken with explosive items, vines burned away with burning items, and valleys crossed with dodging boost items. Progress deeper into a region is gated by Sealing Barriers, and a barrier only lifts once the party reaches the Ark tied to it, which triggers a boss fight that must be won to remove the seal. Breaking a seal also opens magical bridges that act as shortcuts on later trips. Investigable Survey Flags in towns and the field register to a world database for rewards, and field clues marked with map icons unlock subquests back in town. These mechanics are covered in full on the Field Obstacles page.4747Weather, Time of Day, and Visibility4949The same stretch of Aincrad can feel noticeably different depending on weather and time of day. Changes in atmosphere can affect how clearly the environment reads, which ties directly into how readable enemies and terrain are during a fight. It is not yet confirmed whether weather shifts dynamically across a play session or whether it is fixed per quest, so both behaviors should be considered possible for now.5151Lighting matters at a more direct level as well. Dark caves are difficult to navigate without help, and items like torches make exploring them noticeably easier. That ties into the producer's stated goal of making the overworld feel like one large dungeon, where progress depends on preparation, shortcuts, and the tools a player chooses to bring out into the field.5353Labyrinth Towers and Floor Bosses5555Tall labyrinth towers are visible in the distance on each floor's map. Each labyrinth is described as a multi-floor maze full of winding paths, traps, hidden rooms, and dead ends, and each one holds the raid boss that guards that floor's exit. On Floor 1 that fight is against Illfang the Kobold Lord. Clearing the labyrinth boss is what allows players to ascend to the next floor.5757How much of a labyrinth any given player explores firsthand in Echoes of Aincrad has not been fully pinned down. Dungeon-type quests and the visible towers on the world map both suggest there is real exploration inside, but the developers have left some ambiguity about whether the story takes the player all the way through each labyrinth or fast-forwards to the raid at the top. Either way, the labyrinths are treated as defining features of Aincrad's geography rather than set dressing.5959Key Facts at a Glance6161Aincrad is a floating castle of one hundred stacked floors. Clearing every floor is the only way out of the death game.Each floor has its own environments, climates, dungeons, towns, villages, and monster populations, and can differ dramatically from the next.Echoes of Aincrad covers Floors 1 and 2 only, with roughly 30 hours of main story, around 20 hours of side content, and additional postgame activities.Future games are planned to continue the climb through all 100 floors if this entry succeeds.Safe Areas scattered across the world serve as respawn points, healing stations, fast-travel nodes, and subtle pillars of light visible even on unexplored maps.Overworld enemies respawn when a Safe Area is activated, aggro is sticky over long distances, and nearby foes can join active fights.Weather and time of day can change the atmosphere and visibility of an area; whether they shift dynamically or per-quest is not yet confirmed.Dark caves are hard to see in without help, and carrying items like torches makes them much easier to navigate.Labyrinth towers visible in the distance hold the raid bosses that guard each floor's exit, beginning with Illfang the Kobold Lord on Floor 1.63+Inside the Labyrinth65+The tower that connects one floor to the next is divided into named chambers stacked vertically, with resting points between most of them. On the first floor the sequence runs from a Bottom Chamber up through middle sections, past the floor boss chamber, into an Upper Middle Chamber, and finally to the Crucible Chamber before the summit stair.67+Dungeon interiors are randomised, so a route learned on one visit does not transfer to the next. What stays consistent is the connective tissue: passages between sections are sealed with a material that has to be struck with your weapon to open. In the tower it is a black material, in cave dungeons it is a wall of leaves, and inside the sanctuaries it is red roots. Learning to look for those seals rather than memorising a layout is the skill the dungeons actually reward. See The Labyrinth for the full breakdown.69+Named Regions71+Fields between settlements are named and mapped separately, each with its own checkpoints. The confirmed set across the two shipping floors gives a sense of how varied the castle's interior is: forests, canyons, grassland, badlands, sand, and ancient ruins all appear within two floors.73+FloorNamed Regions and LandmarksFloor 1Megalith Forest, the West Forest, the Plains of Departure, the Northeastern Hills, Teardrop Cave, the High Elven Ruins, and the settlements at Town of Beginnings, Horunka, and Tolbana.Floor 2Eastern Trochhi Grasslands, Central Wilderness, Western Primordial Sands, the western badlands, the Grasslands of the Sacred Cow, the Sacred Mountain of Lulue paths, the Sacred Mountain Temple, a chain of sanctuaries, and the settlements at Urbus, Marome, and Taran.75+Regions stay dark on the map until a checkpoint inside them is activated, so the shape of a floor is something the player uncovers rather than something the map hands over. Arks and treasure chests only appear once that reveal happens.
