Aion 2

We rate Aion 2 B tier (6.8 out of 10). It is 10/10 in population but only 3/10 in fair pricing, and that gap is the whole game: SteamDB counted 397,905 players at once on Oct 5, 2026 and a 24-hour peak of 180,875 when we read it on Nov 12, 2026, yet buying or selling on the player Market needs a US$14.99 Membership every 30 days. We also think its PvP is oversold at 6/10: there are many modes, but gear decides most of them. TheLazyPeon gave the game 3 out of 10 for excitement in his video The Next BIG MMO Releases Of 2026 and expected the West to leave within three months; five weeks in, with 45% of the launch crowd still there each day, we think that call was too gloomy. His MMORPG Tier List 2026 gave it no tier at all, because he had not played it yet.

We think the global servers get a second Sanctuary raid, after Ludra, by the end of March 2027.

Confidence: Likely. Check by: Mar 2027.

16:07 Live now is the patch of Nov 11, 2026, which opened Hard mode for the Fire Temple and Ferocious Horn Den at item level 2,800 and doubled the Ludra raid's time limit to 2 hours. The game is free on Steam and NC's PURPLE launcher, on Windows only, with servers in North America, South America, Europe and Japan per NC's Launch FAQ. Korea and Taiwan are a year ahead: their level cap went from 50 to 55 with housing on Nov 11. Aion 2 is a Korean theme park MMORPG with two warring factions, wings, fast hybrid combat and a dungeon grind for gear, which is what TheLazyPeon is playing in the clip.

Scores

Pros and cons

Pros

• The largest MMORPG crowd we found measured in 2026: 397,905 at launch and still 180,875 at the daily peak on Nov 12.
• You can install it, reach the level 45 cap and run dungeons without paying anything.
• Leveling is quick and broken up by short solo Sealed Dungeons that pay skill points and upgrade stones.
• Two PvP modes set everyone's stats equal: the 10v10 Battlefield and Chaotic Outer Reshanta.
• A patch lands almost every week: the Ludra raid on Nov 3, Hard dungeons on Nov 11.
• Any monster can become your mount once you have killed enough of them.

Cons

• Without the US$14.99 Membership you cannot list or buy on the Market, trade with a player or use the Kina and Quna exchange.
• Quna bought with money can be swapped for Kina, the currency of gear, so spending buys progress.
• The game's own macro holds your rotation on one key and beats manual play.
• Flight lasts about 15 to 20 seconds before stamina runs out, even at level 31 in TheLazyPeon's run.
• Dungeon rewards are rationed by Odyle Energy, and the global version trails Korea by a year of content.
• At 100 ms of ping the dodges already feel late, and there is no client for Mac, Linux or console.

PvP: 6/10

13:37 On paper this is the richest PvP of any 2026 launch: duels, arenas, the Battlefield, Spacetime Rift invasions, the flying faction war of the Abyss and its Artifact Sieges. Stoopzz, who played the Taiwan version for months, called it "just whatever" in his Sep 20, 2026 review: fun with friends, but not balanced between power scaling, stat bloat and paying.

We agree, and NC's own patches say the same thing. The Nov 3 patch added Chaotic Outer Reshanta, where all stats are standardized, expressly "to reduce disparities" from character progression, then gave it only 3 hours of base playtime a week. The same patch cut Artifact Sieges from three a week to two. The Nov 11 patch raised Abyss Point rewards for players who want them "without participating in PvP".

A ranked season in an equal-stats mode with no weekly hour limit would make this an 8. If sieges shrink again, it is a 5.

PvE: 7/10

11:41 Stoopzz, whose review calls the dungeons cinematic and puts a learned run at about 10 minutes, describes the fights well: attacks come fast, "everything really hurts", and the mechanics are "relatively simple", well short of World of Warcraft's Mythic raids or Lost Ark.

The global servers have one 10-player raid, Abyssal Forge: Ludra, with entry at item level 2,800 on Normal and 3,000 on Hard. It arrived 29 days after launch. One raid is thin, which is why this is not an 8. It is not a 6 because weekly patches keep adding rungs, and Hard modes now ask for clean play: a 4-minute Frenzy timer and 3 revives per player.

Solo play: 8/10

20:39 This is where Aion 2 surprised us most. TheLazyPeon, who says he usually dislikes linear leveling, kept stopping for Sealed Dungeons because they are short, full of things to kill and always pay. In Shroud's Oct 3, 2026 session he counts about 200 of these solo dungeons and reaches a mount from a monster after a short farm.

The main story quests are the weak part: kill three, loot three, auto-path to the next marker. At endgame, the Nov 3 patch raised the rewards of three Exploration dungeons to Normal level so players without a party can still gear up. The Market paywall keeps this from a 9, since a solo crafter cannot sell without the Membership.

Combat: 7/10

4:05 TheLazyPeon scored the combat 7 out of 10 after 8 hours and said it already felt better at level 14 than Throne and Liberty does at max level. We give the same number for a different reason. He found it fun but spammy. Stoopzz found the deeper problem: there is almost no global cooldown, players wore out their hands, and NC answered with a built-in macro that cycles your skills while you hold one key. Later in the same review he says manual play is "just flat out worse".

Skills that change on a second press, perfect dodges and casting on the move earn the 7. A rotation the game plays for you costs it the 8.

Fair pricing: 3/10

21:40 The download is free. After that:

• Membership: US$14.99 for 30 days, per server. It unlocks the Market, personal trades, the Kina and Quna exchange, and a second Odyle Energy injection on reward cubes.
• Quna: 400 for US$5.99 up to 4,000 for US$59.99. The same notice lists a US$19.99 starter pack, once per character, with 100 Battle Enhance Scrolls.
• Daeva Pass: the current premium track costs 1,000 Quna per character and pays Odyle Energy and Battle Enhance Scrolls; levels sell for 50 Quna each.
• Skins: armor sets at US$29.99 in the Nov 11 notes, cosmetic only.

By our rule, power sold but capped is a 4. Power is sold here through the exchange, as Stoopzz says plainly in the clip, and NC's finance chief put Quna at about 50% of the game's revenue in May 2026. We take one more point off because the Market itself, a basic MMO feature, is rented by the month.

Population: 10/10

The rule gives 10 for 100,000 or more. SteamDB's all-time peak is 397,905 on Oct 5, 2026, the largest Steam peak we found for any MMORPG this year; GamesRadar reported the same figure on Oct 6. The trend is down but slow: a 24-hour peak of 193,796 on Nov 5 and 180,875 on Nov 12. The count misses PURPLE players and all of Korea and Taiwan. It also cannot see mood: 25,743 of 46,834 Steam reviews were positive on Nov 12, 55.0%, a Mixed rating.

What creators say

44:22 TheLazyPeon (Sep 28, 2026, 8 hours of the global playtest) had "zero expectations" and was "pleasantly surprised". He liked the combat, the leveling and how crowded the world felt; he disliked the mobile-style camera, the short flight and trivial story bosses, and he does not trust the monetization to stay mild. His advice: play until you stop having fun, then move on. We agree with nearly all of it; our pricing score is his worry confirmed by the price list.

Stoopzz (Sep 20, 2026) calls it a more casual, main-character version of Lost Ark, "primarily a PvE game", and pay to win. He still says play it, with the subscription "nearly required". We agree on PvE and pricing and rate solo play higher than his review implies.

12:06 Shroud (Oct 3, 2026) is the outlier on combat: he calls the gameplay and combat design fantastic, where Stoopzz calls combat one of the weakest parts. Shroud was leveling a Sorcerer; Stoopzz was at endgame with the macro. We side with the endgame view. Shroud also said he does not love the energy system, and neither do we.

Who should play it, and who should not

Play it if you want a new, crowded MMO to level through for free, if you liked gearing in Lost Ark but wanted one main character and shorter raids, or if you enjoy collecting mounts and outfits in a good-looking world.

Skip it if any paid advantage is a deal breaker, or if you want PvP where skill alone decides. For large-scale PvP with a fair shop, Guild Wars 2 is the nearest alternative; for harder raids on a flat subscription, Final Fantasy XIV. NC's own Throne and Liberty is the closer fit if sieges are all you want.

For builds, dungeon guides and a live player chart, our Aion 2 viki at aion2.vi.ki covers the game page by page.

Sources

• Aion 2 charts, SteamDB, read Nov 12, 2026
• Aion 2 on Steam, read Nov 12, 2026
• Patch Notes, Nov. 11, NC on Steam, Nov 11, 2026
• Patch Notes, Nov. 3 (PST), NC on Steam, Nov 4, 2026
• 10/28 New Pass Product Info, NC on Steam, Oct 29, 2026
• Launch FAQ, NC on Steam, Sep 30, 2026
• Special Quai Membership notice, NC, updated notice of Aug 19, 2026
• 9/30 Common Product Info, NC, Sep 30, 2026
• Aion 2 hits peak concurrent player count of 397,905 on Steam, Inven Global, Oct 5, 2026
• Aion 2 1st Anniversary Festival Unveils Major Winter Season Update, Inven Global, Nov 8, 2026
• Aion 2 and Lineage Classic drive record quarterly PC performance for NC, Inven Global, May 12, 2026
• New MMO Aion 2 soars on Steam with nearly 400,000 concurrent players, GamesRadar, Oct 6, 2026
• Aion 2 Player Count, DLCompare, Nov 5, 2026
• Aion 2 First Impressions "Is It Worth Playing?", TheLazyPeon, Sep 28, 2026 (video)
• The Next BIG MMO Releases Of 2026, TheLazyPeon, 2026 (video)
• MMORPG Tier List 2026, TheLazyPeon (video)
• Aion 2 Is Ruining My Life... (FULL REVIEW), Stoopzz, Sep 20, 2026 (video)
• Aion 2 Is Not What I Expected, Shroudy Rowdy, Oct 3, 2026 (video)