This is an article about the VRMMORPG by the same name as the entire series.

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Summary

Sword Art Online is the first-ever virtual-reality massive-multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Kayaba Akihiko and produced by Argus along with the FullDive compatible NerveGear. The game is set on a skyborne hundred-floor castle called Aincrad, and is designed to be beatable.

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Environment

Global Setting

The entirety of the game took place on an enormous 100-floor castle Aincrad that floats in the sky, about ten km wide. There were no invisible walls or other artificial limitations to the players' progress, apart from the safe zones. If a player were to jump off of the castle, they would die after two minutes of falling.

Each Floor was its own biome with specific geographic and weather features, endemic flora and fauna, and most of them themed; however, each one had its Labyrinth Tower that led to the next Floor, and was guarded by the Floor Boss at the top.

Seasons and Weather

Time in SAO was measured by Aincrad Standard Time and Aincrad Calendar. The known months are:

• Sakura Moon (サクラの月 sakura no tsuki, April)
• Ash Tree Moon (トネリコの月 toneriko no tsuki, October)
• Cypress Moon (イトスギの月 itosugi no tsuki, November)
• Holly Moon (ヒイラギの月 hiiragi no tsuki, December)

All Floors were influenced by the time and season the same way. Aincrad's seasons were loosely based on the current real-world ones, but were milder and randomized for variance.

Physical Surroundings

In SAO, physical surroundings including walls, buildings, and monuments. m=Major features in the game were specially flagged as Immortal Objects that caused a loud pop-up warning to appear if struck.

The other objects all had a finite durability and can be destroyed. Gear, potions, crystals, and food all degraded over time and were deleted when the durability value reached zero. Dropping food, well, dropped its durability to zero.

Repairs could be expensive and not regularly available (Asuna is known to have carried five spare rapiers on a solo run), and blacksmiths were valued.

Gameplay

Initiation and Character Creation

The game needed a lengthy initial calibration. The NerveGear needed to boot up, then tune in to the player after their "Link Start" command, then in-game sensory calibration would follow. Then the player would select the game language, and finally, the character creation screen would transition in.

The first run of the NerveGear required calibration, wherein the player entered their height and weight, and touched their body parts.

Despite Kayaba Akihiko's intrusion replacing everyone's avatars with their real-life looks, players were still able to choose their eye color and hair color and style.

User Interface

Visual Interface

The head-up display (HUD) was available that showed several levels of interface to the player.

The hit point bar displayed the player's name, a hit point gauge doubled in numbers, and their level. The smaller bars appeared below to show the hit points and names of the other party members if applicable.

In the bottom left corner of the field of view (FoV), the in-game time was displayed.

Every NPC, monster, and player had a Color Cursor above their head. It was either green (for players), orange (for criminals with up to three crimes), or red (for monsters and PKs). In battle, enemies had names and health gauges above them; bosses had multiple health bars to indicate attack pattern changes. If the monster's level was too far above the player's, its health would instead show up as "unknown".

Touch Interface

Tapping on key objects, including items and doorknobs, activated them to either use the default function or have a menu pop up with available actions, in a similar way to a smartphone control. In SAO, the touch interface replaced various actions and in effect streamlined the complex actions like cooking.

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References

Sword Art Online - Fan Wiki