Echoes of Aincrad Walkthrough Hub: Main Story Quests & Closed Beta Tips
Echoes of Aincrad is set in the Sword Art Online universe, and this walkthrough hub is built to take you through the game’s main storyline quests while you learn what each fight throws at you. If you’re jumping into the closed beta, you’ll start with a customized character and work your way toward clearing the opening tower floors, then continue through every major quest as the guide links out to each objective and its rewards.
Release-window and platform details
The provided walkthrough text focuses on how the game’s modes and progression systems work (including what you can access after completing the Prologue) rather than listing platform availability, regional release dates, or edition-specific platform support. It does, however, call out edition requirements for unlocking the Death Game mode, including timing tied to completing the Prologue and the need to start a new save in certain cases.
Echoes of Aincrad walkthrough hub
This guide hub (titled Echoes of Aincrad) is designed to walk players through every main story quest, offering tips and practical advice as you progress. Along the way, you’ll be shown what enemies and bosses you can expect to face, while still staying aligned with the narrative. The hub is meant to act as a central checklist: it includes links to each main quest, notes the rewards for completing them, and points you toward additional information later in the guide.
- Jump to the following walkthrough sections:
- Echoes of Aincrad Walkthrough
- Understanding the Difficulty Options
- How to Customize Your Character
- Echoes of Aincrad Walkthrough
- Understanding the Difficulty Options
- How to Customize Your Character
Echoes of Aincrad Walkthrough
Echoes of Aincrad is an action role-playing game set inside the Sword Art Online world. If you already know the franchise, you should recognize certain places and even some characters. In the closed beta, you can enter as a character you’ve customized and attempt to clear the first two tower floors. This walkthrough is structured around the game’s main story quests, and it indicates that a table below lists each quest guide alongside its corresponding rewards.
That said, the reward structure is described as fairly modest for most quests. In most cases, you’ll primarily earn a small amount of experience points and in-game money. The experience reward can shift slightly based on your selected difficulty—one commonly cited baseline is that normal difficulty grants 100 experience.
Beyond typical rewards, the guide notes that you’ll sometimes complete quests that raise your Cardinal Rank. This rank then changes how the world behaves: enemies scale upward in level, loot drops are adjusted, and other related effects come into play. The guide also adds checkboxes next to each main story quest so you can track what you’ve cleared as you move through the storyline.
Understanding the Difficulty Options in Echoes of Aincrad
Echoes of Aincrad includes four difficulty tiers, plus an additional alternate setting that can be unlocked later. The choice is framed as a mix of personal skill and the kind of experience you want—whether you prefer a smoother ride through the story or a tougher combat challenge. The guide also highlights that higher difficulties generally bring better loot and more experience, though the experience increase from quest completion is described as minor.
Difficulty choices and their in-game descriptions:
- Story – “For those who just want to enjoy the story.”
- Normal – “For those who enjoy a balance between story and combat.”
- Hard – “For those who want a harder challenge.”
- Very Hard – “For those with the utmost confidence in their fighting prowess.”
The alternate setting layered on top of your chosen difficulty is called Death Game mode. The text explains that you can’t just pick it immediately—you must either beat Echoes of Aincrad or purchase a special edition. For players using the Digital Edition or Ultimate Edition, Death Game mode becomes selectable shortly after finishing the Prologue. However, there’s a catch: you must start a new save, which also allows you to skip the tutorial and return to the point where you left off.
How to Customize Your Character
At the start of Echoes of Aincrad, you begin with a default character. The guide indicates you’ll need to spend some time using them before creating your own. During the closed beta phase, you’ll use this default character and, eventually, you must complete the quest The Violet Fencer II. After that quest is cleared, you can create and customize your character for the official in-game launch.
Even after you create your custom character, the guide warns that the default character will remain in use for a short while. That can feel confusing right after character creation, but the guide says it ties directly into the story flow.
Finally, it points players to a set of additional helpful guides available across IGN’s wiki, including:
- Tips & Tricks
- All Weapons Explained and Stat Recommendations
- All Achievements and Trophies
Up Next: Prologue Walkthrough
Top Guide Sections
- Tips & Tricks
- Walkthrough
- Partners
- When Character Customization Unlocks
