Overview
The Starter Pack is a bundle of early-game items shipped as part of the Deluxe Edition and every higher tier of Echoes of Aincrad. It is included with the Deluxe Edition, the Ultimate Edition, and the physical Aincrad Edition. It is not included with the Standard Edition. The pack arrives in the player's inventory near the start of the adventure and is framed by the publisher as a starter set of items that are useful in the early stages of play, when Col reserves are thin and consumables are still expensive at Floor 1 merchants.
Inside a Deluxe-and-up purchase, the Starter Pack sits alongside three other edition perks: an early unlock for Death Game Mode, access to the post-launch Expansion DLC once it ships, and, only on Ultimate and the physical Aincrad bundle, the cosmetic Flutter armor pack. A full breakdown of which perks come with which tier lives on the Editions and Pre-Order Bonuses page.
Contents
The Starter Pack contains four item stacks, with the same quantities across every edition that bundles it. The list below matches the contents listed in the official edition descriptions:
Item | Quantity |
|---|---|
Col (in-game currency) | 50,000 |
High Healing Potion | 10 |
High SP Potion | 10 |
Mystic Crystal | 10 |
What Each Item Does
The four item stacks in the pack target the three pressure points new players hit on the first two floors of Aincrad: running out of money before the gear shop has anything worth buying, dying to a boss because healing items are rationed, and running dry on the resource that powers Sword Skills mid-fight. Each stack is described below in turn.
50,000 Col is a sizable opening budget in the Floor 1 economy. It is enough to cover a round of starter gear, restock consumables at a town merchant, or pay for early upgrade work at the Smithy without first grinding out the currency from low-level mob drops. New players who are still learning the combat system can spend the lump sum on equipment that softens those first few hours, rather than starting from zero.
High Healing Potions x10 are the strong-tier health recovery consumables. Standard tier potions still drop from common encounters, but the high-tier variants restore a much larger chunk of health on use, which makes them a natural fit for the first proper boss fights on Floor 1 and Floor 2. Ten of them is enough to cover several attempts at Illfang the Kobold Lord and the Floor 2 boss without forcing the player to farm replacements between attempts.
High SP Potions x10 replenish the SP resource that powers Sword Skills and the partner-side Special Skills. SP regenerates passively while exploring, but during a sustained boss fight the bar drains faster than it refills, especially when the player is chaining heavy weapon arts and reactive moves like Parry Slash, Dodge Slash, and Reversal Slash. A high-tier SP potion lets the player keep pressing the offensive instead of dropping back to basic attacks while the bar refills.
Mystic Crystals x10 are listed as a high-utility crystal item in the pack. The exact in-game effect of the Mystic Crystal has not been formally announced ahead of launch, so this article does not commit to a specific use case. Players will see what the item does the first time they open the consumable menu and try one. Until then, treat the ten-stack as a reserve of utility crystals to be used at the player's discretion in the first few hours of play.
Why it Matters in the Early Game
Echoes of Aincrad has a hub-bound economy: equipment changes, leveling, and smithy work all happen back in town between mission runs. That means the early game has a chicken and egg problem. To buy stronger gear at the Floor 1 hub, the player needs Col. To earn Col reliably, the player needs to clear Floor 1 fields and dungeons, which is easier with stronger gear. The Starter Pack short-circuits that loop. The 50,000 Col stack covers the first equipment upgrade outright, which then makes early field combat against enemies like the Frenzy Boar and Floor 1 kobolds noticeably less punishing.
The two potion stacks reduce the friction of the first real difficulty spike on each floor. Floor 1's labyrinth fight against Illfang the Kobold Lord and the equivalent Floor 2 boss in Urbus both punish unsteady resource management. Twenty potions is not infinite, but it is enough to give the player a margin for error during their first attempts at each fight.
Players who pair the Starter Pack with the early Death Game Mode unlock that comes in the same Deluxe-and-up bundle have a particular reason to value the consumables. Death Game Mode deletes the save slot when the player dies, which makes every avoidable death much more expensive. A larger early Col reserve and a stack of strong potions both help reduce the chance of an early permadeath wipe before the player has settled into the game's combat rhythm.
How it Sits Alongside Other Edition Bonuses
The Starter Pack is one of four bonus items that the higher edition tiers bundle on top of the base game. The other bonuses are listed below for context, since players reading this page often want to know what else they get when they pick up a tier that includes the Starter Pack:
Death Game Mode early unlock (Deluxe and above) gives access to the permadeath layer from the very first save slot, instead of locking it behind a main story clear.
Expansion DLC (Deluxe and above) is a post-launch story add-on scheduled to release before the end of 2026. It is bundled as a guaranteed download once it ships.
Armor Pack: Flutter Boots & Flutter Robes (Ultimate and above) is a cosmetic armor set themed after the two protagonists of the tie-in promotional film, with an appearance that adapts to the player's avatar body type.
Unanswered//butterfly Bonus Contents App (Ultimate and above) is a standalone application that bundles the tie-in promotional film together with a digital art book, a digital soundtrack, and concept and background art.
Pre-orders on every tier, including the Standard Edition, also receive the Weapon Pack: Proto-Elucidator Series. That pack is separate from the Starter Pack: Standard Edition buyers can pre-order to grab the weapon pack on day one without ever owning the Starter Pack contents.
Standard Edition Buyers
Standard Edition buyers do not receive the Starter Pack. The base game economy is balanced around starting from zero, so playing without the pack is the default experience the developers built around, not a punishing reduction. Standard buyers earn early Col through quest rewards and field drops, build up their first set of consumables from town merchants and dungeon chests, and progress through the Floor 1 story at their own pace. Anything the Starter Pack provides on Deluxe and up is already obtainable in regular play through normal Floor 1 town of Beginnings content; the pack accelerates the opening hours rather than unlocking content that is otherwise gated behind a paywall.
Related Pages
Col details how the in-game currency is earned, spent, and stored.
Editions and Pre-Order Bonuses lists every tier and what each one bundles.
Expansion DLC covers the post-launch story add-on that ships with Deluxe and above.
Death Game Mode explains the permadeath layer that Deluxe-and-up buyers can toggle on from the start.
Flutter Armor covers the cosmetic armor pack bundled with Ultimate and above.
Smithy and Gear Enhancement describes the upgrade hub where early Col and crafting materials are spent.
Getting Started walks new players through the opening hours of the adventure, where the Starter Pack contents are most useful.