This 2017 anime film offered a remarkable vision of widespread AR adoption that feels increasingly relevant as Google, Meta, and Apple push new hardware to market. “Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale” depicts a world where AR has moved beyond gaming into everyday life through the “Augma” – a neural interface headset that overlays digital elements onto the physical world.
Beyond Gaming: AR for Daily Life
Unlike typical sci-fi portrayals focused on gaming, the film explores AR’s integration into mundane activities. Users receive contextual information like nutrition facts when looking at food, see name tags above other users, and earn real-world rewards like store discounts for AR engagement. This loyalty system approach mirrors what we’ve seen with Pokemon Go but scaled across retail and social environments.
Shared Experiences Without Isolation
What’s particularly compelling is how the film handles shared AR experiences. Multiple users see the same virtual elements – whether game characters, environmental transformations, or AI assistants. Buildings can be virtually “skinned” to appear as fantasy towers to AR users while remaining unchanged to everyone else. This creates communal digital experiences without the isolation often associated with VR.
Virtual Entities in Physical Space
The film features completely virtual characters like the AI pop star Yuna, who exists only in AR but holds concerts and interacts with fans in physical venues. This concept of virtual celebrities and AI assistants with visual avatars feels remarkably similar to current trends in virtual influencers and spatial computing interfaces.
Interface Evolution
Interestingly, despite advanced AR capabilities, characters still frequently use phones alongside their headsets. This suggests a future where physical and virtual interfaces complement rather than replace each other – perhaps recognizing the continued value of tangible touchscreens for certain interactions.
Reality Check
Seven years later, many of these concepts are becoming reality. Location-based AR marketing, contextual information overlays, and shared virtual experiences are all emerging in current AR platforms. As hardware finally catches up to these visions, “Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale” serves as both inspiration and cautionary tale about creating AR experiences that enhance rather than overwhelm daily life.
The film’s exploration of AR beyond gaming feels particularly timely given Meta’s recent projections about non-gaming growth in spatial computing. While the anime takes creative liberties, its core insights about AR’s potential to transform social interaction, commerce, and information access remain remarkably grounded – making it worth revisiting as we stand on the cusp of mainstream AR adoption.