Sword Art Online is the first ever VRMMORPG produced by Argus for the NerveGear, with Kayaba Akihiko as the development director. The game takes place on a hundred-floor floating castle called Aincrad.

Prior to official launch, «Sword Art Online» Closed Beta was available to 1000 beta testers for a one month period from August to September of 2022. During that period, «Sword Art Online» was lauded as an incredible experience, and it received extremely positive reviews despite the actual difficulty of the game (over the one month period, the Beta Testers only reached the 8th floor). After the Closed Beta Tested ended, the Beta Testers were given the opportunity to pre-order the game.

Only 10,000 copies were printed in the first batch of the game, and online sales sold out within seconds. Hard-core gamers waited in line for days to purchase the first few hard copies from stores.

«Sword Art Online» officially started server service on 1 PM of November 6, 2022 and obtained infamy when the creator succeeded in trapping 10000 people in the game, and making it so that death in-game would mean actual death for the player. During the two-year period the game remained active, «Sword Art Online» evolved into an innovative yet complex society of individuals with mixed feelings about the possibility of clearing the game.

Psychologically, many players experienced extreme despair, grief, insanity and sadness during the course of the game. Of the total 3,853 deaths, over half occurred in the first month of SAO. Combined with lethal dungeon traps, PKing, crime, suicides, a slowly dwindling population, and increasing difficulty on the higher floors, the prospects generally looked very bleak.

and ty wiki for saveing me like a 1000 years :3