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AION 2 was released in two waves. The Korean and Taiwanese service launched on November 19, 2025, and the global release followed in 2026: paid Advance Access for Founder's Pack holders opened on September 30, 2026, and the free-to-play launch went live on schedule on October 5, 2026 at 6:00 AM PDT (15:00 CEST). The global version is PC only and is distributed through Steam and NCsoft's PURPLE platform. NCsoft narrowed the window to September 2026 at Summer Game Fest on June 5, 2026, published the advance-access date on July 22, 2026, and named October 5 as launch day at Opening Night Live on August 25, 2026.

Release Timeline

Global Versus Korean Service

The global service is a separate build from the Korean and Taiwanese one, which has patched weekly since November 19, 2025. NCsoft has not published a feature list for the global launch build, so the table sets what the global first-party sources (the global notice board, the storefront news feed, the global support FAQ and NCsoft's English video channel) said as of October 7, 2026 against the Korean service. Most systems documented on this wiki were written from the Korean service; where the global column is silent, do not assume a Korean feature is in the global build.

The short version: the global launch build is not the current Korean build. It ships the eight original classes, a five-player party structure, the first Sanctuary raid (now pulled for a rework) and the early Transcendence dungeons, and no global source yet mentions the Chapter 1. Lands of Sand and Snow content (the Brawler, Eltnen and Morheim, the level 50 cap). Progress does not carry over between the two services, and Korea and Taiwan are on the global service's list of restricted countries.

Confirmed Dates

Both halves of the release now have dates attached. The advance-access start of September 30, 2026 is stated directly in the Founder's Pack product notice, in the support FAQ, and in the pre-purchase block on the storefront listing, together with the five-day length. The start and end dates are the same for every buyer regardless of when the pack was bought. NCsoft's press materials call this window Early Access while the storefront labels it Advance Access; the two labels describe the same five-day head start.

The free-to-play launch day was October 5, 2026. NCsoft announced it at Opening Night Live on August 25, 2026, and the storefront release field carries the same date. On the morning of launch NCsoft confirmed the game would open on time at 6:00 AM PDT (15:00 CEST), and it did. Advance access had opened on September 30 and ran five days into the launch.

The remaining launch-week times arrived in the last days before the opening. Pre-download opened on September 28, 2026 at 6:00 AM PDT, with the downloaded files encrypted until the client decrypted them at the start of Advance Access. The published schedule ran Advance Access from September 30 at 6:00 AM PDT (13:00 UTC) to October 4 at 10:00 PM PDT, followed by maintenance until the global launch on October 5 at 6:00 AM PDT (13:00 UTC); NCsoft said the maintenance times may change. On the day the opening slipped, first to 6:30 AM PDT and then to 7:00 AM PDT. The Advance Access server lineup was published on September 28, Pacific time, and grew through opening day. See Advance Access and Servers and Regions.

Launch Scale Test

Before either date above, NCsoft ran a free public stress test of the global build called the Launch Scale Test, open on September 17 and 18, 2026 with pre-download from September 16.

Steam players had to uninstall the separate playtest application and download AION 2 again for advance access on September 30; PURPLE players did not. Full detail on Launch Scale Test.

The notice that closed the test, posted on September 18, 2026 Pacific time, carried two changes for the live service. As an anti-bot measure, direct player-to-player trades are disabled, and the Market remains the central hub for trading between players. The queue policy also changed: when a server is at capacity, Membership holders in good standing join a priority queue instead of the general queue, and both queues move as space opens. NCsoft described priority access as a privilege rather than a guarantee that can be revoked from accounts with disciplinary action against them or suspected of breaking the Terms of Service. The same notice restated the calendar: advance access from September 30 to October 4, official launch on October 5.

Advance Access Opening

Advance Access opened on September 30, 2026. Queues formed on the original servers within hours, and NCsoft answered by opening six new server pairs across Europe and North America over the day. An overnight maintenance scheduled for an hour and a half addressed a bottleneck when interacting with quest objects in several Hero Quests, and a no-downtime fix on October 1 addressed Early Access status not being recognised at login and problems with in-game purchases. NCsoft said account-linking problems were still under investigation. Players received a thank-you coupon and mailed gifts during the first two days.

On September 30 NCsoft reported that AION 2 was No. 1 on Steam's Global Top Sellers chart. Steam wishlists had passed 1.3 million before the opening, and the game reached a reported first-day peak of about 171,500 concurrent players on Steam, a figure that does not include PURPLE. Full detail is on Advance Access, and the events running through October and November are on Launch Events.

Global Launch Day

Advance Access ended on October 4 at 10:00 PM PDT, and an eight-hour maintenance moved the servers to the commercial launch build. That maintenance shortened the character deletion wait from 168 hours to 24 hours, lowered the minimum level for deleting a character from 10 to 1, extended the idle time before a player is sent back to server selection from 30 minutes to 3 hours, and lengthened in-game announcements from 3 to 10 seconds. It also made quest objects easier to interact with (some no longer disappear and others respawn faster), raised the stats of some bosses that NCsoft said were set too low for a five-player party, and added a Quest Tracker button that teleports players to Verteron or Altgard if they cannot travel there while on the Poeta or Ishalgen Hero Quests.

The game went live on schedule on October 5 at 6:00 AM PDT. A second wave of launch servers opened next to the Advance Access servers in every region, and NCsoft added more European and Asian pairs through the day; the full list is on Servers and Regions. NCsoft thanked players for reaching 300,000 and then 400,000 active players that day, sending everyone 15 Artisan's Roasted Fogus (Bound) and then 15 Resurrection Spiritstones (Bound), and followed with a Customization Voucher (Bound) for all players after seeing how many of them wanted to customize skins in the Closet.

Two policy changes landed around launch. On October 3 NCsoft said the Founder's Pack cosmetics would be made usable by every character on an account, on any server, after players reported that the original binding got in the way of playing with friends on other servers or levelling other classes; see Founder's Packs. On October 5 it announced that Sanctuary Raid: Ludra, which players had cleared during Advance Access at a lower level of progression than intended, was removed from the launch build and will return with new and adjusted mechanics, a reset Hall of Fame and a first-clear event. Ludra gear earned during Advance Access was removed with it and will be returned, with upgrade materials refunded, when the raid comes back, and every player who cleared Ludra in the Europe region during Advance Access receives a commemorative title. See Abyssal Forge: Ludra.

On October 4 NCsoft also warned that buying Kina or Quna from unauthorised third parties breaks the Terms of Service and can end with the loss of access to the game. The first weekly maintenance after launch ran from October 6 at 11:30 PM PDT (October 7, 08:30 CEST), scheduled for three and a half hours, or five and a half hours on the Asian servers.

Player reviews cooled after launch. As of October 7, 2026 the Steam store rated user reviews Mixed: 8,571 of 13,053 reviews across all languages, about 66 percent, were positive, down from Mostly Positive (about 77 percent of 3,639) on October 2.

PC Only Globally

The global release is a PC-only game. NCsoft says so in its own storefront copy, which ends the short description with the words PC only, and the storefront platform flags list Windows alone with no macOS or Linux client. The two distribution routes, Steam and PURPLE, both serve the same Windows client.

That is a deliberate split rather than a technical limitation, and NCsoft has described it as one. The Korean service leads with mobile and supports PC through PURPLE; the global version was built specifically for PC, a decision aimed at the Western MMO market that shapes the control scheme and the graphical target.

The Korean Service Is Not PC Only

Our coverage of the Korean and Taiwanese build has to keep this straight, because almost every system on this wiki was documented from that build.

NCsoft publishes separate minimum and recommended device requirements for phones and tablets alongside the PC ones, ships Android and iOS client updates through the mobile stores on their own review cycles, runs pre-registration through those stores, and has shipped features that exist only on mobile, including an auto-skill support mode, an auto-dodge support mode and, later, a mobile HUD editor. PURPLE is NCsoft's PC launcher, not a streaming wrapper around a phone game.

A practical consequence worth knowing: on the Korean service, Steam and VK account types cannot log in on mobile at all, which is a further sign that the two clients are genuinely separate builds.

When reading Korean or Taiwanese coverage, treat any mobile feature, mobile control scheme or mobile-specific patch note as specific to those regions. None of it is part of the global launch.

Distribution

NCsoft's launch FAQ, posted on September 30, 2026, says the in-game content is the same on Steam and PURPLE and that players on both share the same servers. A Steam player does not need a PURPLE account, but playing the same character through both launchers requires linking the accounts; see Account Linking. Progress from the Korean or Taiwanese service does not carry over to the global version.

Regional Servers

NCsoft has stated the global regional layout twice, and the two statements do not line up cleanly. The April 2026 global announcement said AION 2 would maintain servers in four regions: North America, South America, Europe and Japan. The first global livestream in August 2026 gave the layout as North America West, North America East, South America, Central Europe and Japan. The most likely reading is that North America runs two server clusters inside one region, but NCsoft has not published a reconciled list, so the geographies are firm and the count is not.

The Advance Access server lists gave a practical answer. When the game starts, players choose a region first, then a faction, then a server, and the Advance Access lineup listed five regions: Europe, NA West, NA East, Latin America and Asia. The launch FAQ of September 30, 2026 still describes the server locations as North America, South America, Europe and Japan.

There is no region locking, so players can create characters in any region regardless of where they live. Each account gets four character slots at launch. Korea and Taiwan retain their own server clusters. Full detail lives on Servers and Regions.

A pre-release FAQ posted to the storefront news feed on September 16, 2026 restated the server locations as North America, South America, Europe and Japan.

Restricted Countries

No region locking does not mean every country can play. The global support FAQ, last revised on September 26, 2026, lists the countries where NCsoft cannot accept payments or allow play: China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, Vietnam, the Russian Federation, Belarus, Belgium, the Netherlands, Curacao, Bonaire, Saint Maarten, Aruba, Serbia, Slovakia, Cuba and Syria. Korea and Taiwan are on the list because they are served by the separate Korean and Taiwanese service. Russian remains one of the eight supported languages even though the Russian Federation is on the list.

Localization

AION 2 has text and UI localization in eight languages: English, French, German, Spanish (Spain), Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Korean, and Russian. Three of those ship with full voice audio: English, Japanese and Korean. Simplified and Traditional Chinese appeared in the global language list earlier in 2026 and are no longer part of it; Korea and Taiwan continue to run their own clients and server clusters.

System Requirements

AION 2 is built on Unreal Engine 5 and ships a single Windows client that serves both distribution routes.

NCsoft attaches a preset recommendation to each tier: Very Low at 1920 by 1080 on minimum hardware, Low at the same resolution on recommended hardware, with an SSD advised at both. The client supports modern upscaling on supported hardware. Full detail, including what is not in the published specification, lives on System Requirements.

Business Model

AION 2 is free-to-play. The detailed monetization model, including memberships, the premium currency Quna, and per-character Daeva Passes, is covered on the Monetization and Memberships page. NCsoft published the global business model on July 8, 2026, covering the Membership, the Kina and Quna currencies, Daeva Passes, and Founder's Packs.

Early Access and Server Structure

NCsoft published how launch-day servers will work on July 17, 2026. The release opens in two waves, and which wave you land in depends on whether you bought a Founder's Pack.

Faction-Separated Servers

Servers are split by faction: Elyos and Asmodian players are on separate servers, and the two sides meet in the Abyss and through Spacetime Rifts for PvP. Your faction choice determines which servers you can create characters on.

Grouping Across Servers

Dungeon party matching is not limited to a single server. During Early Access, players match for parties across every Early Access server in their geographical region. At launch the matching pool widens to cover both Early Access and Launch servers in the same region, so a player who started early and a player who started on launch day can run content together.

Abyss matchmaking follows a stricter rule. During Early Access it happens between Early Access servers only. After launch, servers are matched on how far along and how strong each one is, so a server that has been running for five extra days is not thrown against a day-one server.

Two Markets

Early Access servers keep their Markets separate during the head-start window, which is the mechanism that stops five days of extra farming from setting launch-day prices. Trading on either Market requires an active Membership; see Monetization and Memberships.

Server Transfers

Server transfers opened after the October 13 PDT / October 14 CEST maintenance: Early Access servers in the first week and launch servers from the October 20 PDT / October 21 CEST maintenance until before the October 27 PDT / October 28 CET maintenance. The base fee and per-character fee are 0 Quna (extra character slots cost 1,000 Quna each), each account gets one transfer for the whole period, and moves stay within the same faction and region; Early Access characters can only move between Early Access servers. Instanced content, dungeons included, remains cross-server, and players on different servers can add each other as friends. See Server Transfer for the conditions and what carries over.

The Korean and Taiwanese build ran its own first server-transfer window from July 22 to July 28, 2026, priced at 1,000 Quna per account plus 200 Quna per character moved, limited to one transfer per account and to servers of the same faction. A second window ran from August 26 to September 1, 2026 on the same base pricing, with an extra 1,000 Quna per slot when the destination server has no free character slot unlocked. Applications open only between 20:00 and 24:00 on each day of the window, transfers stay inside the same faction, and a character has to be at least level 45, standing in a town rather than in the Abyss or a dungeon, clear of any Legion membership or pending application, and carrying no mission in progress. That is a live-build service on the Korean and Taiwanese servers and does not describe the global transfer terms above.

Founder's Pack Tiers

Founder's Packs went on sale on July 22, 2026 at 6:00 AM PDT and NCsoft's last-chance notice of October 1, 2026 (Pacific time) gave October 5, 2026 at 8:00 AM PDT as the final time to buy one. They were the only way into advance access, and sales closed at that deadline. Three tiers are sold, each including everything in the tier below it, and prices are set in US dollars with other currencies converted at the prevailing rate.

The supply chest is a levelling kit rather than a power purchase: ten each of the Return, Courage, Speed, Benediction and Absorption Scrolls, a hundred Life Potions, fifty Life Serums, thirty Healing Potions, ten thousand Power Shards and five Resurrection Spiritstones. Every skin, wing, pet and title in the packs is appearance-only and grants no stats.

A few purchasing rules matter. One pack may be bought per account per platform, and a pack bought on one platform only works on that platform, so a Steam purchase cannot be played through Purple. All players share the same servers regardless of where they bought. Buying more than one pack does not stack the advance-access period or grant duplicate rewards. Under the original pack terms, upgrades between tiers were available on Purple only, priced at the difference ($25 Standard to Deluxe, $75 Standard to Ultimate, $50 Deluxe to Ultimate); Steam originally required a refund and repurchase. Full monetization detail lives on Monetization and Memberships.

Characters themselves are not tied to a launcher. Support answers revised between September 24 and 26, 2026 say a character created through Steam can be played through PURPLE by choosing the Steam login option there, and a PURPLE character can be played on Steam either when PURPLE was signed into with Steam or after the Steam account is linked to the NC account under Account Linking on the NC website. Those answers cover character access and do not revisit the per-platform rule for the pack itself. Founder's Pack items also carry one of three binding types once claimed: character-bound items stay on the character that claimed them, class-bound items can be shared with other characters of the same class, and server-bound items are shared with every character on that server.

On October 3, 2026 NCsoft changed that binding for the cosmetics. Once the change is implemented, which NCsoft said would be finished after Advance Access ended, every character on the account can use the pack's cosmetics on any server: the title Vanguard of Atreia from every tier, the Ascended Daeva armor skin and Eternal Sun weapon skin from Deluxe up, and the Moonlit Aria armor skin, Black Dragon pet and Blazing Sun Wings from Ultimate. The 30-day membership, the Daeva's Campaign Supply Chest and the Daeva's Styling Chest stay one-time rewards. NCsoft added that PURPLE buyers can upgrade to a higher tier, and that Steam buyers who buy a higher tier on the same account can ask customer support to refund the lower pack, with the exact process to follow in a later notice. Full detail is on Founder's Packs.

NCsoft has also noted that in some countries the packs went on sale while age-rating review was still pending, and that access could be restricted for buyers who do not meet the final rating requirements. Refunds are available before launch; afterwards they are limited to fourteen days with under two hours played and no bundled items claimed.

During the August 7, 2026 global livestream, NCsoft announced that every Founder's Pack tier now includes 30 days of membership, applied retroactively to packs that were already purchased. The publishing team also said on the broadcast that Founder's Pack cosmetics will not be sold in the in-game shop later; that commitment was stream-stated, and as of October 7, 2026 it has not appeared in writing on the global notice board, in the global support FAQ or on the storefront. The support FAQ separately confirms that Founder's Pack items can be claimed without playing Early Access: if they are not claimed during Advance Access, they can still be claimed on any server afterwards through a dedicated Founder's Pack claim button.

Launch Rewards for Everyone

NCsoft extended the pre-registration and wishlist rewards to every player who creates an account and logs in between September 30, 2026 and the maintenance on December 1, 2026 at 11:30 PM PT. The rewards arrive automatically by in-game mail, and the mail expires at the maintenance on December 8, 2026 at 11:30 PM PST. NCsoft said rewards would keep being distributed for about two months after Early Access.

Servers are faction-specific, so check the server list before creating a character; free transfers between servers of the same faction and region opened on October 14, 2026, one per account for the whole period (see Server Transfers above).

Marketing Ramp

NCsoft's marketing for the global launch ramps up through 2026, with new trailers, showcase events, and a recurring livestream series that anchors content reveals. Specific event dates and showcase details are announced on the official channels closer to each appearance; treat any single date circulating ahead of an official announcement as provisional until NCsoft confirms it.

NCsoft held its mid-June Seoul showcase, the AION 2 Summer Festa, on June 14, 2026, for a closed-invite audience of around 150 attendees plus an online broadcast. The recap appears under the dedicated section below; it deepened the Korean and Taiwanese build roadmap but did not announce a specific global launch day.

Summer Game Fest 2026 Reveal

AION 2 appeared at Summer Game Fest on June 5, 2026, where NCsoft premiered a new trailer and set the global launch for September 2026. Immediately afterward, the studio ran closed-door hands-on demos for press and content creators at SGF Play Days from June 6 to 8, with the demo build showcasing flight and aerial combat, the class system, character customization, and open-world PvP. The September window was the first time NCsoft committed to a specific month for the global PC release, narrowing the earlier second-half-of-2026 framing.

June 14 Summer Festa Showcase

NCsoft held the previously-teased Seoul showcase, the AION 2 Summer Festa, on June 14, 2026, for a closed-invite audience alongside an online broadcast. The event focused on the Korean and Taiwanese build's roadmap. Its headline reveals were a ninth class, the Kwon-seong, and a major update called Chapter 1. Lands of Sand and Snow, scheduled for July 1, 2026 on that build. The Korean live service now groups major updates into larger Chapter units rather than numbered seasons.

NCsoft published that class's English name on July 6, 2026: it is the Brawler, a Gauntlets-wielding front-line damage class. Several unofficial renderings circulated in English coverage beforehand and are no longer used here. See Classes for the roster and Brawler for the class itself.

The showcase itself did not announce a launch date; the advance-access date arrived later, in the July 22 Founder's Pack notice. Coverage of the event has not stated which Chapter 1 features ship in the global build at launch versus arriving on the global timeline afterwards, and as of October 15, 2026 no global first-party source mentions the Brawler, Eltnen, Morheim or the level 50 cap (the global Halloween event of October 14 places its coin merchants only in Verteron and Altgard, and its weapon skins cover eight weapons), so treat Chapter 1 content as Korean and Taiwanese build content (see Global Versus Korean Service above).

Beyond the Abyss Global Livestream

NCsoft held its first livestream dedicated to the global release, Beyond the Abyss: Global Release Preview, on Friday, August 7, 2026 on the official AION 2 channels. The broadcast confirmed a batch of launch details for the Western build, though it did not name the free-to-play launch day.

The stream also cited more than 200 character customization options and a launch roster of over 200 pets and mounts with auto-loot. These details come from the broadcast itself; where NCsoft has not repeated them in written announcements, treat them as stream-stated until they land in official text.

AION 2 at gamescom 2026

NC announced on August 6, 2026 that AION 2 would be showcased at gamescom 2026 in Cologne, Germany, from Wednesday to Sunday, August 26 to 30, alongside two other NC titles, CINDER CITY and Project Bonfire. AION 2 was featured during Opening Night Live, the event's opening showcase. The same announcement restated that the Founder's Pack grants Early Access starting Wednesday, September 30, and again gave no calendar day for the full launch.

NCsoft's second-quarter earnings call on August 11, 2026 reaffirmed the September window, positioning the AION 2 global launch as the starting point of the company's release slate running into 2027.

AION 2 then appeared during Opening Night Live at gamescom on August 25, 2026 with a new trailer, published to the storefront the same day as the Gamescom 2026 Launch Date Announcement. The trailer set the free-to-play release at October 5, 2026, the first time NCsoft had named a launch day rather than a month.

On September 1, 2026 NCsoft released a short video showing the game running with NVIDIA DLSS 4.5. The last campaign before launch was War for Atreia, a competitive event for community creators: 60 creators across three regions, split between the Elyos and Asmodian factions under six captains. The team draft was streamed on September 23, 2026, and the two-week event started on September 30, the day advance access opened. Its final standings, published by October 16, 2026, name the Asmodian faction the winner, with 8,781 points to the Elyos faction's 8,169.

On September 30, 2026, as Advance Access opened, NCsoft released the official launch trailer, Heirs of the Broken Sky. On launch day it published Road to Global Launch (Extended Edition), a ten-minute video in which the team talks about the vision and technology behind the game, and on October 6 a short cut of the launch trailer announcing that AION 2 was live.

Accessibility and Client Features

The storefront listing declares a set of client capabilities and accessibility options for the global build. These are publisher-declared feature flags rather than a tested audit, but they are the only first-party statement on the subject so far.

Of the eight supported languages, three ship with full voice audio: English, Japanese and Korean. The remaining five are text and interface localization. The listing also carries mature content and gore descriptors, sets a required age of 13, and declares online co-op alongside online PvP.

Controller support is not among the declared features. NCsoft's launch FAQ of September 30, 2026 says the game is playable with a controller but that controllers are not officially supported. The same FAQ says AION 2 may run on other platforms or devices, such as Linux or Steam Deck, but that official support covers only Steam and PURPLE on Windows PC. The September 16 pre-release FAQ had said NCsoft was still evaluating full controller support for launch.

Account-Wide Cosmetic Claims After Launch

The October 6 PDT / October 7 CEST patch implemented that cosmetic entitlement through a dedicated free section in the Shop. Eligible buyers can claim the covered skins and titles on every character and server until a closure announcement; an already-owned item cannot be bought again. Duplicate skins do not consume the paid skin limit. Duplicate inventory-item disposal and removal of duplicate skin-list entries remain planned. If a Founder purchase fails, close the game client and try again. See Founder's Packs for the tier entitlements and one-time reward exceptions.

October 6 Launch Milestone

NCsoft reported on October 6, 2026 that AION 2 reached more than 400,000 concurrent players immediately after its October 5 global launch. The announcement does not give a Steam/PURPLE breakdown. It also reported that the game led Steam Top Sellers, Popular New Releases and Trending Free at that time; Top Sellers ranks games by revenue.

October 10 Producer's Letter

On October 10, 2026 NCsoft posted a Producer's Letter, signed by the AION 2 team, as an image on its global notice board, and reposted it to the storefront news feed on October 14. It thanks players for the launch, says Membership was added to the Founder's Packs because players asked for it, and says the official launch adopted a zero-queue policy after the long Early Access queues while the team kept watching how players spread across servers. It confirms that server transfers would arrive on October 14 with no cost for the first transfer, points players to cross-server matchmaking for Expedition and Transcendence instances in the meantime, and says upcoming content begins with Ludra's return and the first seasonal celebrations.

Related Pages

• AION 2 Overview

• Monetization and Memberships

• Classes

• Factions: Elyos and Asmodian

• World and Regions

• Servers and Regions

• System Requirements

• Launch Scale Test