Out of Bounds in the Town of Beginnings
Exploring the limits of game demos is a time-honored tradition, and the Echoes of Aincrad playtest is no exception. While Bandai Namco's latest ARPG keeps players on a relatively tight leash during the initial demo quest walkthrough, dedicated community members have already managed to break past the boundaries.
Players have discovered a way to clip out of bounds underneath the Town of Beginnings, leading directly to a massive, unreleased environment: the Labyrinth Area.
Finding the Tower of Heaven
In the game's lore, the Labyrinth is a massive tower that connects the many levels of the floating castle. According to the game's official English website, Aincrad’s residents call this structure the "Tower of Heaven," while players simply refer to it as the Maze.
In the demo, this area is physically located directly beneath the Black Iron Palace. Community members who have glitched into the zone report that the structure heavily resembles Floor 47, though its underground placement remains a mystery. The area features striking visuals and gives a brief glimpse of the architectural scale Bandai Namco is aiming for in the final release.
How Players Are Reaching the Labyrinth
The glitch, credited to community finders like Blank_Air and shared by lowflorette on Reddit, involves exploiting geometry collision within the Town of Beginnings.
- Locate the boundaries near the Black Iron Palace.
- Utilize specific movement angles to slip past the collision barriers.
- Once through, you can drop down to the low-detail models and walk directly into the hollow layout representing the Labyrinth.
While doing this does not pose the extreme risks of the actual permadeath mechanic in death game mode, it is a great way to satisfy your curiosity about the castle's layout. Be warned that because this is an unfinished zone, you can easily fall through the geometry or get stuck, requiring a game restart.
Technical Hiccups: Controllers and Resolution
If you are trying to recreate this exploration run on PC, you might run into a few technical hurdles that are currently plagueing the demo.
Several players reported that the game failed to recognize their controllers. A quick community fix has surfaced: if your controller supports variable polling rates, lowering the polling rate from 1000Hz to 500Hz reportedly solves the issue. Additionally, if the demo's lack of native resolution settings or the forced motion blur during cutscenes is bothering you, you will currently need to manually edit the game's configuration files (Engine.ini) as a workaround until the developers patch in proper options.