Aion 2: A Failed MMORPG – P2W & Anti-Player
Aion 2 is a game developed by NC (NCSoft)
Steam
2026/10/13
(YYYY/MM/DD)
I have played MMORPGs since Lineage2 in 2005. The first Aion, and more recently, Throne & Liberty (initially named Lineage3), were also part of the MMOs made by NCSoft that I played.
Glossary
- MMORPG: massive multiplayer role-playing game
- P2W: pay to win
- Gear score / Combat Power: raw number displaying the strength of your character
- Alt: alternate (or secondary) characters
- Drop / loot: monster items received after defeating it
- Kina: normal currency in Aion 2
- Quna: premium (for real money) currency in Aion 2
Aion 2 Review: The P2W Layers
This is my custom ranking system, each level is worse than the previous one.
Level 1: Pay for Convenience
This is were most consumables (potions / buffs), extensions (storage / character) and similar functionalities fall under.
In Aion 2 you can get this extra stuff from the paid currency and the normal currency (but requires the monthly subscription), although that monthly subscription gets you more then convenience (more about this later).
The remote storage you get from the monthly subscription also falls under this category.
Level 2: Pay for Premium Items
This is were the subscription and battlepass sits. In most games battlepasses have a free track and a premium (paid) track, which is the same in Aion 2.
The free track gives you items and the premium track gives you a bigger chunk of them.
Aion 2 has 2 of them at launch, which basically act as 2 additional subscriptions if you are looking to get all rewards.
Level 3: Pay for Core Functionality?
Here is where things start to get out of hand. All MMORPGs rely on some core functionalities to provide a decent gameplay experience. When one of them is locked behind a subscription it destroys a part of the game for everyone (including the ones paying).
I’m speaking about the auction house (called market) being locked behind the monthly subscription.
The market in Aion 2 is a ghost town, barely anything in there since people cannot interact with it, there is no economy.
This is an anti-player feature, brought to you by corporation greed. And has been the most talked about subject in-game chat.
Level 4: Pay for Power
Can you get the best gear in Aion 2 by paying? Short answer: yes.
Aion 2 has 2 ways of getting gear using real money:
- Buying energy (for Kina) with the monthly subscription (more about the energy system later). This has a weekly spending limit: 20*40 = 800 energy or 6.67 bonus days per week (that’s a week bonus).
- Buying the normal currency (Kina) with the premium currency (Quna) in the exchange market to buy unique materials on the market in order to craft the best gear.
Aion 2: The Energy System
For opening gear cubes. Paying for energy is paying for more gear. Base energy recharge is 15 per 3 hours, or 120 daily.
Expeditions (Gear Dungeons)
40 energy per cube opening. Alts having their own energy filling and the dungeon gear being tradable between your characters (server storage) means you can use them to gear your main character.
Transcendence (Arcana Dungeons)
40 energy per cube opening. Once you hit 1600 gear score you can start spending energy in there to get these arcana cards.
Aion 2: Other Game Mechanics
Some other elements not related to P2W but worth mentioning, since they can make the game a lot worse.
Combat System
Aion 2 has a modified alt-tabbing system, which is better than the classic one (which you can still enable if you wish to). It combines direct aiming with auto-targetting.
I’ve being AoE farming (meaning: pulling a lot of mobs at the same time) in a lot of games and this system fells alright minus the very short range of attack, both pulling and AoE size.
The auto-loot pet is not needed since you can just loot everything at once pressing F, the range of this is huge.
The combat system in Aion 2 is definitely better than the one in the first Aion but is worse than the one in Throne & Liberty.
User Interface (UI)
The UI is compact, you get access to everything by opening the menu. The game has a lot of sub-currencies meaning different shops to navigate to, making the total amount of things to check kinda annoying.
Server Faction Balance
An absolute failed system. After all this “character creation restricted” on all servers, plus the split of both faction servers, it ends up in some 5:1 ratio in the abyss siege event.
Conclusion
This is the life cycle of the game:
Try the game -> hit max level -> hit the greed wall -> leave the game
It’s in fact not a cycle, the game is bound to fail rapidly due to the predatory monetization model and lack of server balancing.