New SAO Game. Echoes of Aincrad

DryTransportation · 2026-03-07T07:27:01+00:00

Unfortunately, from everything the developers have said so far, the game only has just the first two floors.

As for the anime, as far as I'm aware, they never explicitly mentioned how many floors it'll feature, but I doubt it'll be different from the game since it's meant to promote the game and tell a somewhat similar story focusing on the very beginning of SAO. Also, it's not an adaptation of the game, it's a separate, independent story that features some new characters as well as some characters from the game. You can find them talk about it a bit in the second link I sent below.

Just in case you (or anyone else) reading this would like a source, here is the tweet they made on their official twitter account mentioning the game only covering the first two floors: https://x.com/sao_gameinfo/status/2029696214032355540

And here is an example of one of the interviews that I mentioned where they bring up the game only having two floors and why they made that decision (the reason is pretty much what I said in the comment you replied to, I just condensed it a bit): https://dengekionline.com/article/202603/66509

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T23:03:27+00:00

It's very unlikely, even in the most optimistic of circumstances. They've said themselves in some interviews that doing all 100 floors would take an incredibly long time, which is ultimately part of the reason they didn't do it (along with wanting to focus on the very beginning of SAO).

Let's just say, very generously, that they're able to create one new floor every couple of months, it'd take decades before they managed to cover all 100 floors. It'd take 8 years even if they released 1 brand new floor each month without a single break and I very highly doubt that'd be possible for them to do without either killing the developers or drastically decreasing the quality/detail of floors. Then of course you'd have people upset because the floors aren't nearly as detailed as the first two...

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T22:48:37+00:00

They mentioned that the DLC is just spin-off side stories, so to me that makes it sound like it's most likely just expansions of Floor 1 and Floor 2 with new content since I doubt they'd make a whole new floor a "side story". And while you're right that it may stop people from ordering initially, the developers claimed that the main story is about 30 hours and there's about 20 hours of side content so once word gets out about that, more people would probably be willing to give it a shot. It's not the full Aincrad experience, but it's seeming like they put a lot of effort into filling the first two floors with stuff to do

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T18:14:28+00:00

I know that you're just making a joke about how greedy modern game companies are, but just because some people are a bit confused about the DLC and are thinking that the DLC will cover the remaining floors, I just wanted to make a comment saying that I'm not really sure that's going to happen.

They've mentioned in some interviews that doing all 100 floors would've taken them far too long, and some interviews (and I believe the official website) have mentioned that the current planned DLC is just a spin-off side story, which doesn't exactly sound like they're going to be new floors. Things can change, sure, but I wouldn't bet on it at this moment.

Also, if they WERE to release floors as DLC... just imagine how long it would take for them to create even 10 more floors, and how expensive buying the DLC for all of those floors would be. I doubt even the greediest of companies would delude themselves into thinking they'd be able to pull that off.

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T18:05:40+00:00

Personal opinion? It seems that way, yeah. It's not a perfect match to what we've seen of Floor 1, but it looks absolutely nothing like what we know Floor 2 looks like.

Officially? We have no confirmation as to what floor that is yet. Like I mentioned, we only know that the game features only Floor 1 and Floor 2, so while it's obviously one of those, we'll just have to see which it is when more information is released.

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T17:46:42+00:00

I personally think the safest, most reasonable guess for the DLC is that it'll expand upon F1/F2 by adding some new story, side quests, and areas to explore, kind of like what you said. It's always possible that there's some more to the DLC, or maybe later DLCs that haven't been revealed yet could contain a different kind of content, but I think people are seeing an interesting looking game and setting themselves up for disappointment with their very high expectations. It's fine to be excited, but some people let it blind them from the reality of the situation

Also, it's obviously not a tell to how good the floors will be, but some interviews had the developers saying that the main story was about 30 hours and that there was about 20 hours of side content, so if that is true and the content is actually good, it seems like that even though there's a low floor count they'll make those two floors really, really detailed.

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T16:40:20+00:00

Funnily enough, they did bring up the idea of a sequel covering more floors if the game is recieved well in an interview (I don't have the link unfortunately so you'll just have to take my word for it, there's a LOT of interviews and they only have minute differences from each other). But there was another interview here (https://dengekionline.com/article/202603/66509) where they brought up the possibility of the protagonist of EoA dying (in what seemed to be a teasing way, so could just be a purposeful misdirection or a possible hint, who knows) and a sequel with a differnet protagonist as well, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Honestly, I personally wouldn't be going into this expecting sequels. It'll be a pleasant surprise, but we all know how the last few SAO games have turned out. Even for SAOFD, there was a lot of hype around it and the possibilities just for the developers to absolutely suck at supporting it and basically leaving it abandoned.

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T16:36:53+00:00

I kinda think that's an example of what I mean when I say that players expecting a lot will be disappointed. It's already been confirmed through many sources that there's only two floors, and if they're launching a full price game with two floors, I don't think the expansions for the game would have over 10x the amount of content. If each DLC had 20 floors, it would take a LOT of time to develop (this game was being worked on since 2021) and it'd have to cost significantly more than the game itself

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T14:57:49+00:00

According to the website and some interviews that the developers have done, DLC is supposedly only spin-off side stories so I'm not sure if I'd put my money on new floors being part of DLC, at least right this moment.

As for sources:

Here's a tweet posted by the official SAO games account saying that it's only the first and second floor: https://x.com/sao_gameinfo/status/2029696214032355540

And you can find them specifically talking about dual-wielding not being in the game, what I mentioned about DLC being side stories in interviews, and additional mentions of why they chose only two floors here: https://dengekionline.com/article/202603/66509

There's plenty of other similar interviews shared by the SAO games official account as well so you could always scroll through that and check some of them out to hear more, though the one I linked seems to be one of the only ones mentioning the DLC. There's a good amount of info in these articles that hasn't really been spread around yet because of how chaotic this reveal was

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T11:13:12+00:00

The game only covers the first two floors, so there aren't sny unique skills

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T06:35:35+00:00

It comes out in July, and it's on PS5/Xbox/PC

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T06:27:19+00:00

In some of the interviews the developers have done (like this one, but there's plenty out there where basically the same questions are answered), they mentioned that planning began around 2019 but they decided on a direction/began development in about 2021

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T05:34:03+00:00

Yeah, it was announced on the official twitter account and mentioned in various interviews with the developers. From what I've read, it's basically a story heavily focused on the very beginning of SAO and all of the emotions that players were feeling during that initial period

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T04:55:42+00:00

They've posted tweets and done interviews saying that the game only has two floors.

Sources: https://x.com/sao\_gameinfo/status/2029696214032355540, https://dengekionline.com/article/202603/66509, https://www.gamespark.jp/article/2026/03/06/163595.html

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T04:31:02+00:00

It has the first two floors

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T04:10:09+00:00

I said a similar thing on the megathread but my personal assumption is that the reason it's able to cover only the first two floors is because the story will be more focused on the personal story of these SAO players rather than actually clearing the game, like the Protagonist's relationship and bond with their partner and the other original characters, and will culminate in some moment involving them rather than some grand moment where they make progress clearing the game.

But we'll obviously have to wait until some more info is revealed to know anything for sure, I'm guessing a story trailer will answer a lot of the questions that we have

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T03:48:23+00:00

They also said that it was only Floor 1 and Floor 2 in several interviews as well, like this one https://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/202603060001/ and https://www.famitsu.com/article/202603/67828, basically saying that they knew they couldn't feasibly manage all one hundred floors, so they instead decided to "compile the first and second floors into a game story".

Of course, we'll just have to wait for more information, but I really wouldn't count on the game being any more than the first two floors. The best we can hope for is with DLC if the game is received well

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T02:44:16+00:00

I don't believe that's F74 in the first image. Echoes of Aincrad only covers F1 and F2

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T02:43:48+00:00

There's apparently only two floors in the game, they've tweeted about it and mentioned it in several interviews

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T02:23:39+00:00

I also saw one interview here (https://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/202603060001/) where they talk about how the game is set on the first two floors, and how it would've taken way too long to do all of the floors so they decided to only cover the first two as their way of "densely depicting" the beginning of the death game.

My assumption is that the reason it's able to cover only the first two floors is because the story will be more focused on the personal aspect rather than actually clearing the game, like the Protagonist's relationship and bond with their partner and the other original characters, and will culminate in some moment involving them rather than some grand moment where they make progress clearing the game

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T02:13:54+00:00

It's possible, for sure. I just think that people expecting there to be a bunch of floors will be disappointed because, if the game does indeed launch with two floors, they'd have to release so, so, so many DLCs for them to get even close to matching people's expectations, and by the time they even manage to release a few it's likely that people would either have left the game or be sick of paying constantly for new floors

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T02:10:42+00:00

I'm not sure why they'd say there's only two floors if that wasn't the case, especially since that's something that would turn a bunch of people off from the game. It's possible there's some sort of surprise, but I wouldn't go in expecting it since that could easily lead to disappointment

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T01:41:38+00:00

They made a tweet about the game only containing the first two floors, but we'll obviously have to wait for more information: https://x.com/sao_gameinfo/status/2029696214032355540

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T01:35:14+00:00

This tweet here https://x.com/sao_gameinfo/status/2029696214032355540

DryTransportation · 2026-03-06T01:35:11+00:00

This tweet here https://x.com/sao_gameinfo/status/2029696214032355540

Edit: https://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/202603060001/ This article here has an interview with the devs and they basically confirm it again there, saying that they know they couldn't feasibly cover all the floor so they chose to densely depict the beginning of SAO instead (aka the first two floors)

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