Aion 2
NC · MMO, RPG, Action
RELEASE MILESTONES
Overview
AION 2 is the only MMORPG built around a world where the sky is the battlefield. Choose your faction, ascend as a Daeva, and fight a faction war across a world 36 times larger than the original. PC only, on Unreal Engine 5.
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The sky is not the limit. It is the battlefield.
Built on Unreal Engine 5 across a world 36 times larger than the original AION, this is the only MMORPG built for aerial combat. Verticality is in the DNA of AION 2, and rewards players who can think, and fight, in 3 dimensions.
Every region, every battlefield, every encounter was designed with verticality as its axis. As a Daeva, flight is not a travel mechanic, it is how you fight, how you explore, and how you impose your will on the world. Gain altitude to gain advantage, and experience a scale of aerial combat unlike any other MMORPG.
Precision, timing, and positioning shape every battle. Chain skills seamlessly, customize your class to fit your playstyle, and adapt as encounters escalate. Every fight is a decision, not a rotation.
From solo instances to large-scale raids, AION 2 PvE is built around scale and variety. Over 200 dungeons span multiple formats: solo challenges, 5-player party content, and 10-player group dungeons. Seasonal challenges, competitive rankings, and open-world events keep the excitement high, and the Abyss ensures that PvE and faction war are never far apart.
Bring your vision to life with one of the most advanced character creation systems in an MMORPG. With over 200 customization options and countless outfits, mounts, and wings to collect, your character becomes a true expression of who you are.
The Shugo Festival brings a variety of mini-games to Atreia. Protect the Shugos from waves of enemies, race pets against other players, dodge lasers, and more. Earn unique rewards including wings, skins, pets, and décor!
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT7,064 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Aion 2 is a free-to-play action MMO, and reviewers on both sides agree it looks spectacular. Players praise the Unreal Engine 5 world, a character creator some call the best they have used, and a pet system that turns almost any creature you kill into a mount. Fans enjoy the fast combat, short dungeons and constant stream of upgrades, and some call it the most fun they have had in an MMO in years. Others point out that the free price makes it easy to try.
Critics describe the same game as a mobile MMO moved to PC. Money comes up more than any other complaint: a roughly $15 membership that unlocks the market but only works on one server, two paid battle passes bound to a single character, and paid cosmetics that do not carry across characters. Other frequent complaints are leveling that auto-paths you through easy fights, story content that splits up friends into solo instances, and endgame dungeons rationed by an energy meter. Reviewers agree on the strengths and disagree sharply on whether they outweigh the systems around them. Combat depth and whether the game is pay-to-win are argued hard from both directions.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
A gorgeous world that players stop to look atHigh
17% of reviews praise the graphics, scenery or visuals, and the praise crosses the divide: 16% of the negative reviews mention the visuals too, usually to concede the game looks great before listing what they dislike. Players single out the lighting, the scale of the zones, the creature designs and the cinematics. One recommending player wrote: "There are moments where I simply stop moving and look around because the scenery is that good." A few reviewers disagree, calling the look generic for Unreal Engine 5 or saying characters look worse in the open world than in the creator.
A character creator some call the best they've usedMedium
8% of reviews mention the character creator, nearly always as a highlight, and it often appears as the one thing a negative review liked. "It also has the best character creator I've ever seen in my 30 years of gaming." The complaints concern what happens afterwards: changing your appearance later costs premium currency each time, presets cannot be carried to a new character, and some reviewers found the female presets and outfits oversexualized or uncomfortably young-looking.
Pet and mount collectingMedium
6% of reviews mention pets or mounts. Killing a few of almost any creature unlocks it as a mount, and leveling those pets adds permanent stats, which collectors found rewarding. Even a negative review called the system groundbreaking, praising "being able to capture almost any wild mob in the world and turn it into a rideable mount". A minority found the mount designs goofy or out of place.
Music and the Aion soundLow
New and returning players both praise the soundtrack, including reworked themes from the first game: "you can already tell that the OST is going to be incredible." A few others found the music forgettable or too quiet at default settings.
Where players are split
Combat: fast and flashy, or one button on autopilotHigh
Combat comes up in 17% of reviews, on both sides. Supporters describe fast action combat with dodges, staggers and boss mechanics that open up after level 45: "It feels fast, active and genuinely fun." Around 6% of reviews make the opposite case. They say leveling is so easy you never need your skills, that heavy weapons swing with no weight, and that the built-in macro system turns a rotation into a held button: "Combat= hold one button down, and every 30-60secs maybe press your longer cooldown manually." One player deep into the endgame pushed back on the macro criticism: "Was worried about the combat speed and macro... but there's still skill expression in the game." Some critics who reached the endgame disagree, saying every class still ends up holding a macro there.
Is it pay-to-win?High
12% of reviews use the term pay-to-win, and they argue both sides. Critics point to the exchange that turns premium Quna into Kina, which lets real money buy gear and crafting materials from the market, to paying players reaching top gear score within days of early access, and to Abyss and arena PvP where gear decides fights. Defenders call it pay-to-progress: the cash shop sells no gear directly, some PvP modes equalize stats, and most content is PvE. One defense: "But if you don't have fomo, aren't aiming to compete with the top players who swipe or no-life it, and just want a good game to sink hours into, it barely gets in the way." Even defenders like this one concede that competitive PvP players feel the spending gap most.
PerformanceMedium
Stutter, crashes or frame drops come up in 4.5% of reviews, and smooth or well-optimized performance in about 2%. Players on mid-range PCs often reported good frame rates, and one negative review conceded: "For the first time in quite a while, we have an Unreal 5 mmo that doesn't run like absolute garbage, looks beautiful and is well-optimised." Others hit steep drops in crowded towns and at world bosses, stutter in cutscenes, and crashes on launch, and several owners of Intel 13th and 14th generation CPUs reported an instability warning that blocked play. "FPS can go from around 200 to 10 when certain effects appear, even when you're playing alone." Reviewers also complained about a short render distance, with players and monsters popping in some 20 to 50 meters away.
Story and voice actingMedium
The story comes up in 12% of reviews. Recommenders like the fully voiced side quests and the cinematics; detractors call the plot confusing for newcomers, the English voice acting flat or AI-sounding, and the questing a loop of running to a marker and pressing F to skip dialogue. "The story is boring, the voice acting is stupid and there isn't a single interesting NPC in the entire game."
Living up to the original AionMedium
7% of reviews compare the game with Aion 1. Returning players enjoy the familiar music, places and Shugos: "Aion 2 is giving me all the nostalgia of the original but with new amazing graphics." Others say open-world rifting, the distinct Asmodian look and the long, dangerous climb to max level are gone, leaving a game that "has the name, the world and the nostalgia bait."
FlightMedium
5% of reviews mention flight. Most of them enjoy gliding and fighting in the air: "Flying around and seeing everything from above is still one of those things that just feels right for Aion". A smaller group says the stamina meter undercuts the fantasy: "I flew for 10 seconds and then my stamina ran out."
What frustrates players
Monetization built on a server-locked subscriptionHigh
Monetization comes up in 24% of reviews and in 34% of the negative ones. Reviewers describe it in detail:
- The monthly membership, which reviewers put at roughly $15 (€12.75), is required to buy and sell on the market and to use the Quna exchange, and with direct trading disabled, the market is the only way to trade.
- The membership is bound to one server and faction, so playing both factions or joining friends on another server means a second subscription: "Probably the only mmo in the history of mmos that sells you a subscription that only applies to a single server and is NOT account-wide."
- Two paid battle passes sit on top of the membership, each bought per character, and the Quna packs do not match the pass prices, so buyers overspend to cover the gap.
- Founder's Pack wings and weapon skins, and shop outfits that reviewers price at around $30, are bound to a character or server. Several reviewers noted NCSoft's promise to make Founder's cosmetics account-wide, while the membership stayed per server. "I just found out that the $100 cosmetics I paid for are bound to the first character that I'm not planning to play."
- Dyeing gear and changing your appearance cost premium currency every time.
A mobile game on PC, with leveling on autopilotHigh
11% of reviews call Aion 2 a mobile game or complain about its automation, rising to 24% of negative reviews. Players cite the Alt+1 auto-path to every objective, auto-potions, red-dot notifications and login rewards: "Mobile game disguised as a PC Game...it's surely pretty to look at". Reviewers put the climb to level 45 at 10 to 20 hours, with little threat along the way: "You can win the vast majority of fights against the AI with your eyes closed while just spamming LMB." Some players welcomed auto-pathing as a convenience they could use while sorting menus, though it regularly got stuck on other players' collision.
An MMO you mostly play aloneMedium
5.5% of reviews, and 9% of the negative ones, complain that story quests, sealed dungeons and strongholds are solo instances that split up parties. By their account the first group dungeon arrives around level 22 and most group content after 45: "Aion 2 thinks co-op is a reward you unlock at level 45." Direct player-to-player trading is disabled, which reviewers say was presented as an anti-bot measure, so friends cannot hand each other crafted gear: "In this game, you cannot trade with anyone. Even your guildmates." Guild owners added that legions have little shared content.
Energy and time gates at endgameMedium
4.5% of reviews, and 8% of the negative ones, object to rationed endgame play. Reviewers say dungeon chests cost Odyle energy (15 energy every three hours against 40 per chest, roughly one or two looted runs a day), harder dungeons lock after a weekly run count, Abyss access runs about seven hours a week, and some PvP opens only in daily windows. "You as a developer shouldnt decide how long I play and grind." Some defenders, including players with jobs, liked that energy banks up so they never fell behind for missing a day.
Too many menus, currencies and unexplained systemsMedium
7% of reviews, and 12% of the negative ones, complain about a cluttered mobile-style interface, a long list of currencies and overlapping progression systems the game rarely explains, an inventory without drag-and-drop, and keybinds and settings saved per character. "The biggest problem is that I constantly feel like I need to watch a YouTube guide or ask someone outside the game just to understand basic mechanics."
Crafting, drop rates and gathering luckMedium
5% of reviews raise crafting and gathering. Leather and other materials that only drop from creatures are so rare that low-level crafting stalls, crafts and gathers can fail and consume the materials, and higher-tier gear needs a chain of chance-based upgrades. Extracting a skin from unwanted gear is also a gamble. "Negative Review until they fix leather drop rate". Players gathering for long stretches also hit captcha checks that threatened restrictions when failed.
Locked servers that split up friends at launchMedium
2.5% of reviews, 64% of them from the early-access days, report character creation being restricted on the servers their friends had chosen. Paid early-access players could not join their groups, purchases stayed on whichever server they first used, and reviewers say transfers were promised from 14 October. "Players shouldn't have to predict in advance exactly when their friends will buy the game or which server they will need to choose." A smaller group lost access to their characters or Founder's Pack after linking Steam and NC accounts for Twitch drops, or could not launch past the anti-cheat.
Bots in the open worldLow
2% of reviews, half of them from players with 25 hours or more, report bot trains stripping gathering nodes and gold sellers spamming chat, despite the trading restrictions. "There are bots. Tens of thousands of bots. You cannot farm materials."
AI-generated art and voicesLow
2% of reviews mention AI, mostly as a complaint: some call the voice acting AI-generated from main characters to NPCs, others say the Arcana cards give it away at a glance, and a few use "AI slop" as their whole verdict. Reviewers say the Steam disclosure covers Arcana card art and some icons, and they also suspect voice lines and at least one cutscene. "There is very obvious AI generated voices and a whole 3-4 minute cutscene generated in AI". A few said they stopped playing on finding out.
Missing basic optionsLow
53 reviews, nearly all written within the first two hours of play, complain that there is no invert Y option for mouse or controller, and some of them say they uninstalled on the spot or call it a dealbreaker. Others reported patchy controller support, a camera whose zoom changes field of view, and no walk toggle. "No inverted Y-axis. In 2026. That's a dealbreaker."
Death penalties and character slot rulesLow
Dying means a 15-minute wait or a resurrection stone: "come back to a screen telling me I can resurrect with a cash shop item, or wait 15 minutes to resurrect." Reviewers also reported a level-10 requirement and a wait of up to a week to delete a character, later cut to 24 hours, with four free slots per server and extra slots sold. Some also mentioned a chat filter that muted players for ordinary words.
3. The player conversation
The two sides argue past each other. Many recommending reviews are a line or two ("fun", "good game"), and some defend the game against "P2W" claims or accuse critics of review bombing. Few critics argue with the visuals or the creator. Their case is that the systems around the game ask for too much money and play too much of it for you.
Playtime shows who raises what. Reviewers with under two hours make up about 18% of all reviews but wrote 31% of the mobile-game complaints and 89% of the invert Y complaints, so first impressions turn on the autopilot leveling and missing options. Players with 25 hours or more make up 24% of reviews but wrote half of the energy complaints, half of the bot reports, 52% of the crafting complaints and 67% of the gear-score and gatekeeping complaints: long-session players argue about the endgame grind.
Timing mattered. The paid early-access days ran 74% positive, peaking at 81% on 1 October, when the early complaints were mostly about delayed servers, locked character creation and character-bound Founder's items. Once the game went free on 5 October the tone turned: those launch days ran 52% positive with a low of 46% on 6 October, and as a share of reviews, mentions of the mobile-game feel roughly doubled and AI-asset complaints more than doubled. About 1% of reviews mention WoW Forever, often framing Aion 2 as something to play until WoW Forever arrives, which a couple of reviewers expect in November.
4. What the developers could do
- Make the membership and paid items account-wide. Reviewers were angriest and most specific about the server-bound subscription and the per-character passes, wings and skins, and they noticed the promised fix for Founder's cosmetics.
- Open basic market access to free players or allow trading within parties and legions. Locking the only trading channel behind the membership left free players in a solo self-found game and stopped friends sharing crafted gear, while reviewers saw bots gathering regardless.
- Loosen the energy meter and weekly run caps. Endgame players described running dry after one or two looted dungeons a day and being shut out of runs to help friends.
- Let parties quest together before level 45. Reviewers playing with partners or friends said story instances, sealed dungeons and strongholds split them apart.
- Add danger to leveling and explain the systems in-game. Some short-session players quit over fights they could not lose, and others needed outside guides to understand the currencies and upgrade paths.
- Raise drop rates for creature-only crafting materials, stop failed crafts from wiping materials, and remove gathering bots. Leather drop rates, lost materials and bot-stripped nodes came up together in long-hours reviews.
- Replace character-creation locks with queues and open transfers that carry purchases. Launch-week players who paid for early access could not join their friends' servers and lost the use of what they had bought.
- Add invert Y, consistent controller support, camera options and a longer render distance. Some players who needed invert Y uninstalled within their first two hours.
