Here's why the Echoes of Aincrad demo does not have avatar customization

The demo version of Echoes of Aincrad is now available. This game has been touted to depict a new perspective in the first Aincrad arc of the Sword Art Online series from your own point of view. But even though demos of games with avatar customization would usually focus on such feature—such as Bandai Namco's very own Code Vein II, this game's demo does not give players any access to customize their avatar's looks.

However, when we consider the content accessible in this game's demo and the wider context of the general setting in the Sword Art Online MMORPG, the lack of access to avatar customization actually makes sense. To explain this further, though, we will have to return to the inaugural volume of the light novel that appeared in 2009 and the first episode of the anime adaptation that premiered in 2012.

Although this would come from old surface-level information aged around 14 years from the anime's premiere, this article would still cover spoilers from the source series. If you're the kind who want to start this game completely blind, we suggest you stop reading right here. Otherwise, you may continue along.

The general premise of the SAO MMORPG story

The general premise of the Sword Art Online story is about how the game's creator and gamemaster, Akihiko Kayaba, trapped all players of the VR MMORPG into a non-quittable high-stakes Death Game, where dying even once in the game before it's cleared would also cause the NerveGear VR device to actually fry the player's brain and kill them in real life too. This incident started on the day the online game had its official launch after previously undergoing a closed beta test.

Part of Kayaba's scheme in this plot also includes him converting the avatar designs of all players to be based on their respective real-world faces. This was made possible due to the NerveGear's ability to scan the user's face as a part of its setup.

Where does Echoes of Aincrad demo take place in the SAO MMORPG

While the original Sword Art Online light novel and anime practically started from the official launch day of the eponymous MMORPG, the story in Echoes of Aincrad started from the closed beta test phase. And the demo also only included this very phase of the story without going to the actual official launch day arc.

You would notice how the game would first ask you to input your username, but not your avatar design. The game instead gives you a fixed avatar for the whole duration of the story's beta test phase. Since the aforementioned Death Game announcement did not happen in the beta test, it would make better sense to forego the character customization menu in this demo.

After all, the major twist of the avatar customization in Echoes of Aincrad is that you are not designing your avatar in the Sword Art Online MMORPG, but rather your appearance in the "real world" of the Sword Art Online anime universe.

The full release of Echoes of Aincrad, which will definitely include the avatar customization feature, appears worldwide on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC via Steam on July 10—with Japan and the rest of Asia getting the console releases a day earlier on July 9.