At the recorded low for this price history, Echoes of Aincrad suits solo players who want to shape an avatar, build a partner and fight through Aincrad in real time. The Steam PC version also brings full controller support and a broad range of interface languages. The displayed price ≈ $39.57 at CDKeys gives this purchase a clear JRPG focus without turning it into an online multiplayer proposition. It is a focused choice for exploration, quests and character growth.
The 47% positive rating from 4,165 reviews offers a mixed signal worth weighing against your budget. Players mainly seeking a personal journey through towns, plains and dungeons can judge the purchase against that specific single-player profile.With ≈ $30.42 saved against $69.99 on Steam, this offer is directly comparable for the Steam PC version.
GGselEchoes of Aincrad Steam Key (PC) EUROPE·Platform:Steam·Credit/Debit Card~ RUB 6,755.00Buy now
All-time low ~ $41.62across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated daily
Historical Low~ $41.652026-09Current Low Across Stores~ $41.65GamesPlanet USAt its historical low now
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
Echoes of Aincrad is a single-player JRPG set in the floating world of Aincrad, with real-time action combat. Create a personal avatar, adjust weapons, equipment, stats and special skills, and develop a partner for coordinated battles. Towns, plains and dungeons open up quests, treasures and dangerous enemies.The Steam PC version supports full controller support.The current positive rating is 47% from 4,165 reviews (Mixed).
Credits
Developer
Game Studio Inc.
Publisher
Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.
Steam player reviews
47%positiveMixed4,165 Steam reviews
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$41.652026-09-18 · GGamesPlanet USBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.
Language support
Language
Interface
Subtitles
Audio
Simplified Chinese
Yes
Yes
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Traditional Chinese
Yes
Yes
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English
Yes
Yes
Yes
Show 10 more languages
Language
Interface
Subtitles
Audio
French
Yes
Yes
—
Italian
Yes
Yes
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German
Yes
Yes
—
Spanish
Yes
Yes
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Spanish-Latin America
Yes
Yes
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Thai
Yes
Yes
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Portuguese-Brazil
Yes
Yes
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Russian
Yes
Yes
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Japanese
Yes
Yes
Yes
Korean
Yes
Yes
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Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-13
02Before you buy
Play modes and controller
The Steam PC version supports single-player play and full controller support.
Language
The supported interface languages are shown live as {supportedLanguages}. Full-audio information is tracked separately.
03Frequently asked questions
What can I customize?
You create an avatar, adjust equipment, stats, weapons, a partner and special skills, then develop them through level-ups.
How does combat work?
Combat is real time. Weapon types such as one-handed swords and two-handed axes offer different styles, while items and partner commands add tactical options.
What can I do in Aincrad?
You explore towns, plains and dungeons, complete quests, seek rare items and challenge powerful enemies.
“The series finally lets you live the Aincrad death game as a character you built, and the combat has real depth in boss fights. But the quest loop repeats, exploration is hollow and the story crawls — a fan's nostalgia trip that outsiders will struggle to sit through.”
The 55 Percent Steam Split Tells You Exactly What This Is
Echoes of Aincrad is not the big modern action RPG win Sword Art Online fans have been waiting years for. It’s messier than that. On Steam, it’s sitting at 55% positive from 678 reviews, which lands it in Mixed. OpenCritic is even colder: 64.7 from Top Critics, only 28.2% recommended, and a Weak tag. IGDB’s media number is higher at 77.0, but that’s from one outlet, so I wouldn’t build your whole purchase decision around it. The real picture is split, and honestly, that split makes sense.
Because if you come in as an SAO diehard, there’s a very specific hook here that matters: for once, you’re not just watching Kirito be Kirito again. You build your own character and live through Aincrad from the inside. That sounds small on paper, but for this series, it’s the thing. The 100-floor castle has that distance, that scale, that “I’m actually climbing this thing” spectacle, and when the Japanese anime cast is back, with Matsuoka, Tomatsu, Ichinose, and more, the mood clicks. Push Square also called out the English voice work, and yeah, the audio does a lot of heavy lifting for the darker death-game vibe.
But take the SAO filter off, and it gets a lot harder to defend. The quest structure burns out fast: town hub, marker, fight recycled enemies, then a boss version of something you’ve basically already fought. Repeat. The world looks impressive at first, and The Games Machine calling it breathtaking on first sight tracks with that first impression. But then the rails show. Invisible walls, limited exploration, reused biomes, reused threats. Compared to Bandai Namco’s own Tales of Arise, which has way more texture in its exploration and storytelling rhythm, Echoes of Aincrad feels thin way too often.
The Combat Has Bite, But The Game Keeps Feeding You The Same Meal
Here’s where it gets good: the combat is easily the strongest layer. You’ve got six weapon types: sword, dagger, rapier, mace, two-handed axe, and two-handed sword. Each one has its own Sword Skill tree, and the three-skill quick-swap shortcut gives the fighting just enough buildcraft to keep you experimenting. Precise dodges and parries can break enemy posture, which opens up counter combos, and the AI partner synergy actually gives boss fights some snap when positioning and timing line up.
That’s why I get the fans who are calling this one of the more playable SAO games. DualShockers framed it as the most fun SAO has been in game form, and I can see that angle if what you want is a character-driven climb through Aincrad with enough action systems to chew on. The third-person setup is straightforward, the partner system fits the fiction, and when a boss fight is tuned right, it sells the fantasy better than the story does.
The problem is the game doesn’t trust its own best parts enough. Instead of building varied scenarios around those weapons and partner mechanics, it leans on repetition. The story also takes hours to properly move, and the characters stay thinner than they should. That’s a huge miss, because the custom protagonist should be the whole point. RPGFan’s low-end reaction makes sense there: if you sell me on “my character inside the death game,” then don’t just use that as a skin over the same old structure.
Buy It Like A Fan, Not Like A Blind Action RPG Purchase
So my overall score for this slice of the game is a 6.3 out of 10. Not a disaster. Not secretly great. It’s a fan-first action RPG with one genuinely strong identity hook, a decent combat spine, and a whole lot of padding around it. If you want to live through the Sword Art Online death game as your own character, and you can forgive repeated quest loops because the setting still works on you, this is aimed straight at you.
If you’re just looking for a strong current-gen Japanese action RPG, though, I’d be careful. Without affection for SAO, Echoes of Aincrad starts looking like a pretty average ARPG with better branding than structure. The combat can land, sure, but the quest design, thin characters, and narrow exploration drag it down. Tales of Arise is the brutal comparison here, because it shows what Bandai Namco can do when exploration, pacing, and party drama have more density.
My buying advice is simple: start on standard difficulty and see if the basic loop actually works for you before you romanticize the idea of the harsher version. The permadeath Death Game Mode sounds like the mode that best matches the source material, but locking that behind a paid premium edition is a bad look. Add slow pacing and no dialogue pause, and suddenly the most authentic mode also sounds like the one most likely to test your patience. If you’re price sensitive, wait for a discount. If you’re an SAO lifer, you already know whether that Aincrad pull is strong enough to carry the rough parts.
Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
Yes, its good enough. However, it is a very expensive game for being about a 6/10. Combat feels ok, story so far seems fine. If you are not a fan of the anime, I could see this game being not for you. If you are a fan, waiting for a discount would probably be the move. I am enjoying the game enough to recommend this game. The price however is too much for what the game is. Also, I have a decent PC, I will attach my PC specs, and I am still getting game lag and stutter, clear optimization issues in the game.Show moreShow less
2.1 hours at review705 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I absolutely HATE seeing "leaving quest area" and being teleported back into a zone.
This is supposedly a game that "encourages exploration", however you cant leave the town without being on a quest, you cant walk outside of the quest zone. if you do you get forcefully zoned back in. Everything worth "exploring" is 3 seconds off a road, chests are mapped for you so you never miss them or have to search, and you're not allowed to venture anywhere that the road to your quest objective doesn't go.
See a bridge? your not allowed to cross. Find a dungeon? Yeah you're not allowed to enter. Want to just walk a direction and play you're own way? Nah, sorry, you're not allowed to.
What the **** is this development decision? Sorry, ruined the game for me. May or may not come back to play more later. As of this moment, I feel like I've wasted 70$.
Game looks nice, but dungeons are copy pasted floor to floor, interacting with your weapons/armor, or trying to change or try out builds or weapons is annoying as hell, and enemies are extremely repetitive. I've probably killed thousands and thousands of boars at this point and I'm only a couple hours into the game.
extremely disappointed.
all I wanted out of this game was to get to explore Aincrad with my own character.
Edit: Guys, how many reskinned boars can you possibly turn into bosses... Seriously. I came back with an open mind to play more and just embrace the linearity to see if it gets any better at later points, and I'm pretty sure I've now fought like 10 or 12 bosses that were all the exact same boar and 20 or 30 zones in i'm still fighting the same 1 shot trash mob boars. (this is on the hardest difficulty btw)
Also enabled comments, because i forgot to the first time.
Edit 2: Alright, due to the thousands of people that seems to have read this, i went back and continued to see if the game changes or gets any better, as if so many of you are going to use this to base a purchasing decision on, I'd rather get you more info than a couple hours of the beginning of the game. The previous review was done at around 7 to 10 ish hours. I played the demo for around 4 or so hours, so add that to the total time played. This portion of the review is at around 20-ish hours.
Real talk, I've found almost nothing redeemable about it. The world is empty. Its decently pretty, but there is literally nothing to be found aside from the chests or gatherable spamming. The "elite" fights are all the same. Its a boar, or its a Kobold, or its a reskin of one of those 2 mobs. As of for the map, Its a giant hallway. Follow the road to the objective, get a chest or 2 to get a crystal you can buy from the item vendor, or maybe if you're lucky you'll get a new recipe. It doesn't change, the enemies don't change, and its incredibly repetitive. Dungeons feel the same, and have the same enemies, no special loot, dungeon floors feel copy pasted, bosses are the same enemies you've fought thousands of times, but bigger. Oh and half of their mechanics are just to summon more of themselves but smaller.
More boars. You thought I was kidding before about having a million reskinned boar bosses? Nope, they continue to come. There are 2 mob types, Boars and kobolds. Everything else is a reskin of one of those 2 things. 80% of every mob is one shot with a basic attack. Elites are the exact same mob but bigger, and their only differing mechanic is to summon more of themselves out of thin air. After 20 hours into the game with the demo included and that's all I've seen. This probably changes upon getting to the second floor? At least I would hope so, but idk. This just feels lazy.
Tempered steel, the game does a tutorial on how to use this material, but it only gives you 1, then forces you to use it on some garbage sword. I've tried to find another bit of this material, but have not been able to find a way to get more. This feels pretty dumb to me, as if you have a tutorial on how to use it, include it in the definitions of the upgrade, but there's no way to get more that I've seen throughout the entirety of the first half of the game? I felt this was odd. Maybe a bug? Not sure. If you know where to get more, maybe let your fellow players know. But in my opinion this is an oversight.
I'll get to the second floor and update this again with anything that comes up, but I have very little faith that the core loop will change.Show moreShow less
13.4 hours at review5,981 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
10/10 — Finally, an SAO Game That Protects You From Aincrad
I was worried this game might let me freely explore the world, discover things naturally, or experience some kind of adventure. Thankfully, the developers understood that freedom is stressful, so every new area is safely locked behind a random quest.
You don’t just walk into the next zone because you’re curious. That would be reckless. First, you speak to an NPC, accept an objective, and receive temporary government authorization to go outside. Once the mission is finished, it’s back to the hub until someone gives you another valid reason to exist in the environment.
One of the early quests really shows off the quality of the writing. You are a complete beginner, but a veteran player who has supposedly been playing the beta for months needs your help activating a safe zone in the beginner area.
This is great because it immediately establishes your importance. You may have just arrived, but you already understand basic beginner-area infrastructure better than someone who has adventured solo for several months.
The original Aincrad has 100 floors, which sounds incredibly exhausting to explore, so this game generously gives you two fully crafted zones.
One is a forest.
The other is a desert.
That’s basically the entire range of nature. Green area and yellow area. What more could anyone possibly need? Adding a mountain, swamp, snowfield, village, cave system, coastline, ruined city, or literally anything else would only distract from the carefully focused boar experience.
Enemy variety is also kept refreshingly low. Other games force you to learn the attack patterns, weaknesses, movement styles, and abilities of dozens of different creatures. Here, you get to spend more quality time mastering the subtle tactical differences between a boar and another boar that has slightly more health.
This allows the combat system to truly shine, especially with the animation locking. Once you press an attack, your character fully commits to the decision, giving you several peaceful seconds to think about what you’ve done while an enemy walks behind you and hits you.
The treasure system is where the game really becomes special.
Chests contain exciting items like bombs and talismans. You might assume there would be enemies designed around using these items, but that would make them useful in a conventional and boring way.
Instead, you can use the items to open a blocked path leading to another treasure chest, which may contain more bombs and talismans.
It creates a brilliant economic loop:
Open chest.
Receive item.
Use item to reach chest.
Open chest.
Receive similar item.
Repeat until you begin questioning the purpose of material possessions.
You can also sell these bombs and talismans so you can buy other kinds of bombs and talismans. This gives players incredible freedom to choose which collection of mostly unnecessary items they would prefer to carry around.
There are also minibosses that you summon from arks. Defeating one can unlock a shortcut through the area, which sounds like a satisfying reward until you realize you may not actually get to properly use or explore that new route right away.
No, the shortcut is mainly there for a later quest.
Because after defeating a powerful miniboss and opening a new section of the map, the last thing a player wants to do is explore it. You’re probably exhausted. Go back to the hub, drink some water, and wait until another NPC gives you permission to enjoy the thing you just unlocked.
This is excellent pacing. It separates the rewarding moment of defeating the boss from the rewarding moment of using the reward by several quests, preventing dangerous levels of immediate satisfaction.
Revisiting areas is handled through mission replay, which is obviously much better than simply entering a previously unlocked zone whenever you feel like it. Why freely revisit a location when you can accept the same quest again and pretend you still care about its objective?
The game understands that a world should not feel like a place. It should feel like a collection of temporary rooms rented out through a quest menu.
And there is so much potential for DLC.
The current enemy selection has already laid a strong foundation, but the developers still have countless boar variations available:
Pink boar.
Spiky boar.
Flaming boar.
Three-legged boar.
Tiny boars that surround you like goblins.
Large boar.
Slightly larger boar.
Forest boar.
Desert boar.
Forest boar placed in the desert.
Elite boar with a glowing outline.
Premium golden boar available with the Ultimate Boar Pass.
Personally, I’m hoping for a €19.99 expansion that adds a third zone and six new boars, four of which are existing boars with elemental effects.
Overall, the game is actually fun when it stops actively preventing you from enjoying it. The combat has a solid base, the zones look good, and the concept has massive potential. Thankfully, the developers carefully restrained that potential so nobody becomes overwhelmed by too much content, exploration, enemy variety, or logical quest writing.
Highly recommended for anyone who has always dreamed of visiting Aincrad but thought, “I hope I need to accept a side quest before I’m allowed to walk into the forest.”
10/10 — Would help another veteran complete the beginner tutorial again.Show moreShow less
14.3 hours at review683 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Echoes of Aincrad
A $30 game wearing a $70 price tag.
How do you take one of the most iconic settings in anime—a 100-floor death game where every floor is a new world waiting to be explored—and somehow make it feel boring?
That's Echoes of Aincrad.
I came in expecting an open-world RPG where I could lose myself exploring Aincrad, discovering hidden areas, fighting unique monsters, and carving out my own story.
Instead, I got what feels like another generic Unreal Engine anime game with a Sword Art Online coat of paint, desperately hoping that "pretty graphics" and "serviceable combat" are enough to distract you from everything else that's fundamentally lacking.
They're not.
If you're even remotely interested, play the demo. It gives you a very accurate idea of what you're buying. Save your money, and if you still want it afterward, wait until it's 50% off or more. Nothing about this game justifies a $70 asking price.
Pros
- Combat is... fine. That's honestly the best compliment I can give it. It's a very basic Souls-lite combat system with weapon skills. It functions. You swing your weapon, dodge attacks, use abilities, repeat. It's competent enough that it doesn't actively get in the way, but there's nothing here that hasn't been done better by dozens of other games.
- The environments look great. Credit where it's due—the artists carried this project on their backs. The different regions are beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, looking at them is about all you're allowed to do.
Cons
- A Three to Five-hour prologue before you can make your own character. Who thought this was a good idea? This game was marketed around creating your own survivor in Aincrad, yet you're forced through roughly five hours of tutorial, exposition, and story before you're even allowed to make the character you actually bought the game to play. Imagine buying Skyrim and Bethesda telling you: "You'll get to make your Dragonborn eventually."
- "Open World" is incredibly generous. Calling this game open world is like calling a hallway a nature trail. You're constantly funneled through pseudo-linear maps with invisible walls, blocked paths, arbitrary progression gates, and almost zero freedom to explore. Aincrad is supposed to inspire curiosity. This game actively discourages it.
- Your character has the structural integrity of fine china. For a game that's supposed to encourage exploration, it goes out of its way to punish it. Step off anything taller than a curb and your character immediately dies, fades to black, and respawns exactly where you jumped from. Apparently the greatest threat in Aincrad isn't the monsters—it's a three-foot drop off a rock. There are no meaningful fall mechanics, no attempt to let players experiment with traversal, just an invisible line where the game decides, "Nope, you're not supposed to go there." It feels less like a game mechanic and more like the developers couldn't be bothered to build proper boundaries, so they made gravity an instant death sentence instead.
- Enemy variety is almost nonexistent. Once you've fought an enemy once... Congratulations. You've basically fought everything that floor has to offer. The same handful of enemies get recycled over and over until you're begging the game to surprise you. It rarely does.
- The dungeons are copy-pasted. Walk into one dungeon. Congratulations—you've seen most of them. The layouts, rooms, and encounters are recycled so frequently that they quickly become background noise.
- The story is painfully forgettable. Nothing kills excitement faster than desperately wanting dialogue to end. The writing is bland, the pacing drags, and the characters spend far too much time talking without actually saying anything interesting. By the halfway point I wasn't wondering what would happen next. I was wondering how much longer until I could move again.
- The cast is annoying. You're forced to spend hours with characters that range from forgettable to actively irritating. Instead of wanting to adventure alongside them, I wanted them to stop talking.
- The world feels lifeless. For an MMORPG-inspired world supposedly populated with thousands of players, to relegate any meaningful interaction with NPCs to only a blacksmith and a merchant is laughable. I'm not joking, that's basically it. The rest of the NPCs may as well be decorative furniture.
- Companion customization is laughably shallow. Want to customize your party? Hope changing their weapon is enough for you.
- The AI might actually be allergic to intelligence. Both enemies and allies constantly: Get stuck on rocks, Run into walls, Fail to path around simple obstacles, Stand still doing absolutely nothing, and among various other things, Forget enemies exist. I've watched companions lose fights against geometry.
- Mouse & Keyboard support is awful. This game screams "we designed this for controller and barely tested PC." Several keybinds are permanently locked for no apparent reason. Thankfully I own a mouse and keyboard with onboard remapping software, because apparently Bandai Namco expects players to solve their control problems themselves.
Final Thoughts
The biggest disappointment isn't that Echoes of Aincrad is bad.
It's that it wastes Aincrad.
SAO hands developers one of the coolest settings in anime history:
- One hundred unique floors.
- Endless opportunities for exploration.
- Secret bosses.
- Hidden quests.
- Dangerous wilderness.
- Player-driven adventure.
Instead, we got a game that repeatedly tells you exactly where to go, recycles the same enemies and dungeons, gives you almost no freedom, and somehow makes Aincrad feel smaller than most indie RPGs.
This isn't the open-world SAO game fans have wanted for over a decade.
It's an aggressively mediocre action RPG wearing an SAO skin.
Final Score: 3/10
Play the demo.
Wait for a sale.
And if you're paying $70 for this, you're doing Bandai Namco's quality assurance department a favor by convincing them this level of effort is acceptable.Show moreShow less
5.7 hours at review2,566 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I wish I could give this game a neutral review button. But I can’t so here’s a positive but real review.
It’s not so much an RPG as an action game with RPG aspects. For instance, no open world, no real exploration or reason for exploration. Barely any dialogue options and they all basically mean the same thing regardless. No main character voiced and honestly in this game you’re not even the main character. Just some guy.
The only part about this game worth a damn is the gameplay, which is a mixture between elden ring and dark souls with any action JRPG you’ve ever played. Although far easier and more forgiving. The only thing to really do in this game is to fight. There’s not really a whole lot else there.
Everything involving the UI or the mechanics is also a bit nonsensical. No changing weapons or leveling up when out on a mission, unable to come and go from mission or base at will. Companions who repeat the same lines over and over again. 90% of treasure chests having only bare bones consumables in them.
There’s so much missing from this game that I struggle to even call it an RPG.
If you like the SAO IP then you’ll probably get a kick out of this but I struggle to find a reason it’s worth its asking price. It doesn't offer anything new or innovative and its writing is kinda cringe. So why did I give it a thumbs up despite all the complaints? Well, because to sum up, it’s not really doing anything inherently wrong. I’m just really disappointed with the end result. However, it works, it’s not broken, it can be fun at times, and overall it did what it set out to do. It just wasn’t enough and I'm past the point of hoping games will get better. But it gets a thumbs up because it’s okay. It’s good but not great. It’s average. That’s the best I can say for it. I just don’t think it’s worth its asking price either.
But if you’d like a more in-depth look with gameplay then I encourage you to check out the review on my YouTube channel (link below).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5uETH553vk
Otherwise, thanks so much for reading and I hope I was able to help some of you out there spend your money wisely.Show moreShow less
1 hours at review172 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Another overpriced polished turd by bandai namco, yet again.
The game prologue is just long enough and filled with filler to prevent you to ask for a refund.
And then after that you realized that the game is the equivalent of a bad indie game wrapped with "AAA" budget.
- You pretty much kill so much boars, wolf and bees. I think I have probably destroyed Aincrad animal ecosystem.
- Interesting unique set of skills for each weapon... until you realize you are lock with only 3 "special attack"
- The heavy attacks are clunky and weird. While the combos of different light/heavy attack feel as deep as a pond.
- Mobs are wandering around with no patrol logics, they are just randomly scattered around the overworld.
- NPCs have no personality.
- So far the companion are "OK", and the whole premise was interesting but get old quickly as soon as you get into the meat of the story.
- I don't understand why you cant free roam for side quest? It feels like such a bad design idea that I fail to grasp the reason.
- Character Creation sucks hard and if you messed up? Lets redo 2-3 hours of content again.
- The crafting is so shallow, It's outstanding.
- At least I can give kudos for performance since they are quite good on linux with proton exp.
Also who the hell gatekeep their "hardcore mode" behind paying? How can the whole premise of your game locked behind a deluxe edition? Need to complete the game once to unlock it? come on.
All I can say is that I regret buying this turd of a gameShow moreShow less
7.1 hours at review1,395 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
It's hard to review a game like this after just an hour, but I did play the demo. The game is fun, and the combat is rewarding. It takes a bit of time to master it.
Playing on Keyboard and mouse leaves a bit to be desired. I haven't tried it with a controller but I am assuming they intend for that. I'll be giving that a shot later.
If you compare this to any other SAO game it's miles better than any of those.
If you compare this to a major triple A RPG you'll probably be disappointed.
If you're a fan of the franchise I think your mileage may vary if you are hoping to meet all of the characters from the show etc. Either way, this is a huge step in the right direction for SAO games in general.
Overall I'm impressed. Impressed enough to recommend it. Give it a shot.Show moreShow less
1.5 hours at review140 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Enter the sword art online world, be introduced to the plot, then...proceed to never be bothered with the actual plot again. Run around vast stretches of land with nothing that happens within them, ever. Be completely inconsequential and have no ability to interact with any actual plot. Do not Fish, Do not eat, Do not start a guild. Do not discover any powers or abilities or secrets anyone else didn't get to first. Do not ever do anything that matters to a world that doesn't care about you, or even knows you exist, and will have no change in the outcome whether you are there or not. Welcome to Inconsequential NPC simulator! You won't even die if you die, so you can be sure to enjoy the full ride of being a side character watching other people's drama without ever being involved in any of it. Be the non main character everyone aspires to be in a game, just like we all are in real life!
In this game. You aren't a beta tester. You aren't a beater. You are a beta player. You will always just be a loser who thinks they are the main character when, really , you are the ultimate NPC....Welcome to Gen L gaming.Show moreShow less
21.9 hours at review1,261 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
One common complaint among players of previous SAO titles was the forced reliance on play as Kirito a recurring issue in recent entries. Fortunately, Bandai has taken some of this feedback. Unlike it's predecessors, Echoes of Aincrad grants players complete freedom after a rather lengthy five hour prologue.
For create and customize own original avatar, design appearance, selecting weapons, and allocating stats to suit your specific playstyle whether prefer speed, strength, endurance, dexterity, agility, or other attributes. The synergy mechanics with companion partners (such as Asuna, Kirito, Argo, or new original characters like Iori and Wyzeman) work exceptionally well, allowing you to adjust their tactics and equipment to match playstyle.
Visually, I think this is the best game in the series, the world is incredibly detailed, beautiful, and a feast for the eyes ranging from bustling cities and serene meadows to atmospheric, challenging vertical dungeons.
The game is quite complicated, and agree with the consensus found in various gaming forums: at IDR 799,000 or $44, the price doesn't quite match the overall in-game content offered by Echoes of Aincrad. It's true value is likely closer to half or 60% of the current price.
The open-world environment feels rather empty, contrasting sharply with the bustling activity and dense NPC populations found in the massive cities. It would be great to see the inclusion of side quests with unique storylines or puzzle while exploring the open world, rather than relying solely on treasure chests and boss fights.Show moreShow less
23.9 hours at review87 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
For the SAO fans. Its not the game you actually want. Its an alright game not worth $70. Dont understand why the trees go invisible whenever i walk up to them or when i can walk through a log. Trees dont block enemy attacks, so cant use the surrounding area to your advantage. Not truly an Open-World. Tbh the demo was more exciting than the actual game to me. Dont seem to be able to change Partners gear other than main weapon, no armor or shield.
TLDR- Not actually Aincrad like the anime. Not worth $70. Feels more like a $30 game.
Someone said trees do block attacks, ill have to test it some.
IDK if this is considered a toaster or not lolShow moreShow less
2.4 hours at review1,199 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.
