AION 2 Pulled In 400,000 Players, Then Started a Pay-to-Win Fight

NCsoft's flying MMO actually delivered on the hype

AION 2 fully launched on Steam on October 5, after a short early access window that started September 30. It's a free-to-play MMORPG built in Unreal Engine 5, where you pick a faction, become a winged Daeva, and fight across a world that leans hard into vertical, aerial combat instead of the usual flat-ground MMO grind.

And people showed up. AION 2 peaked at close to 400,000 concurrent players on Steam on launch day, according to SteamDB, more than double its early access peak from just a few days earlier. NCsoft says the real number is even higher once you count players on its own Purple launcher, which Steam's charts don't see.

Then came the pay-to-win backlash

The good numbers lasted about half a day before the discourse turned. Players discovered that progression items the developers had promised would only be earned through gameplay were quietly sold as part of a Day One item bundle instead. The backlash was loud enough that NCsoft's producer went on a livestream roughly 15 hours after launch to apologize, admitted the team had gotten complacent, and said the items would be pulled after a temporary update. NCsoft's stock dropped more than 14 percent the same day.

On top of that, some fans pointed out that a few of the character customization presets looked a lot like real K-pop idols, moles and all, which didn't help the game's image during an already rocky launch week. NCsoft called the resemblance unintentional.

Steam's review score has settled into "Mixed" territory, with a little under 60 percent of reviews positive as of this week. Most of the complaints are aimed at monetization and endgame repetition rather than the actual flying-and-fighting part of the game, which reviewers generally praise, along with the character creator and how good everything looks from a few hundred feet up.

Who it's for

AION 2 is worth a look if you want an MMO that actually feels different thanks to its flight-first combat, and you don't mind free-to-play games that lean on battle passes and memberships rather than a box price. If pay-to-win monetization is a dealbreaker for you, the current backlash is worth reading up on before you commit real time to a faction and a server.