You remember when Aion 2 was first revealed way back? Yeah, I almost didn’t either. Today we have.. well, “bad news” would be an overexaggeration, but we have news on its upcoming release.

Aion 2 was expected to release in 2020, as NCSoft had announced previously, however, due to unforeseen issues concerning the development process, it turns out the upcoming MMORPG has been delayed into 2021. Which really comes as no surprise as we haven’t really heard much of anything on the game in quite a while.

Aion 2 is expected to be a prequel to the popular PC MMORPG Aion, overhauling the graphics engine, the combat, the flight mechanics and adding in new, innovative features to breathe new life into the IP. Many players are upset, with valid reasoning as PC MMO players and Mobile MMO players are two completely different types of gamers, and many PC players believe Aion 2 should’ve been built specifically for PC as a sequel, rather than a low-effort mobile spin-off that games like Lineage and Blade & Soul have recently suffered.

It’s unconfirmed when specifically in 2021 Aion 2 is going to release, or if it will ultimately suffer yet another delay but regardless, it looks like there are plans for a global release somewhere down the line for players interested in a more faithful mobile adaptation of an Aion game that isn’t the terrible Aion: Legion.

In other news, Aion Classic is currently available, with players hopeful the game will launch over here in the West sometime this year.

Aion Classic has officially been confirmed to be coming.. yeah, no joke. I was equally as surprised to hear about it as I bet you guys no doubt are right this very moment.
Back during the early stages of the game, back during version 1 through 2 Aion was generally considered to be one of the best MMORPGs on the market.
It had amazing PvE content and even better PvP content. Meshed together, it had some of the best PvPvE content on the market – but after it proved to be rather unsuccessful as a pay-to-play subscription based game, having to compete with the likes of WoW, they opted to make drastic changes to better support their pay-to-win free-to-play business model.

Last week a Reddit thread surfaced regarding a possible Aion Classic server – but players wrote it off as just a rumor. Fast forward to today, it was announced that South Korea will be receiving the Classic incarnation of the game on the 11th of November – yes, it’s really that soon.
The game will start with version 1.2 and will run through version 2.7 before finishing.. whatever that means. Will the game just.. cease to receive any content at that point? Will they reset the servers after a certain point, having players begin from scratch all over again?
I think they were honestly a little vague with their announcement, but I’m sure as we get closer to the release, or rather, the final version they’ll have more concrete information pertaining to what to expect.
Which is fine. This information just became available to us so I’m sure they’re still uncertain of the exact goal right now, and whether or not this will even be successful.
My thought here is that they’ll use this and get a gauge for how popular the classic server is and then will decide whether they should continue to upgrade the game through version 3 or limit there and reboot everything from scratch all over again.
Who knows, they might even opt to leave that version of the server up for players that achieved max level and for those players that are interested in pushing the content available at the end of 2.7.

Now the most important part of all of this.. is that Aion Classic is going to be a paid game once again, requiring players pay a monthly subscription fee to play the game, much like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV.
Although in an attempt to not run into the same issues it did the first time round by forcing players to pay to play it, the devs have revealed that you’ll also be able to log in and play the game completely free.. for 1 hour per day.
Which if you’ve played Aion version 1 or 2 you’ll know this will amount to absolutely nothing and is a laughable effort from the developers.
They did note that they’ll hold the occasional free-to-play event every 5 weeks that will allow you to play for 24-hours straight before kicking you again.

Now this was all confirmed for the South Korean version of Aion as opposed to the North American of European incarnations.
It is unconfirmed if North America or Europe will receive Classic servers but considering we eventually catch up to the content the South Korean version pushes out I don’t think it would be totally out of the realm of possibility.
If we were to receive it we’d be looking at late 2021 at the earliest. However if you’re invested in trying this version of the game out, you could always potentially play through the South Korean version of Aion Classic, right? I don’t see why not. You might require a VPN though.

Honestly? I feel like this is a great step in the right direction. Aion was an amazing MMORPG before it went free-to-play and bringing back exactly what players want is a way of completely revitalizing a dead game. Especially since it’ll remove all of the content that players hated after the best stages of its life.
As WoW Classic proved, Classic servers can work incredibly well if done correctly.
Whether or not NCSoft are capable of this is another thing all together, though, as this could very well be a mere attempt on cashing in on the whole “Classic MMO” fad that’s currently going on.
Or it might end up being an amazing addition to the genre – one we didn’t necessarily know we wanted nor needed.

Either way I’m excited, especially if we get it over here in the West.

I recently did a video on Lineage 2M – NCSoft’s latest new mobile MMORPG. I’m pretty excited because it actually looks pretty good and it takes advantage of their brand new Purple platform – a platform that allows for mobile cross-play compatibility.
That’s a huge step in terms of allowing PC players and mobile players to play games together.
However, in deciding to make Lineage 2M their priority, several other games that were in production, namely Blade & Soul 2 and Aion 2 have been pushed back. I’ll be doing a video on Blade & Soul 2 in the near future but right now Aion 2 is what I wanna talk about.
Aion 2, not whatever Aion: Legion was. I played Aion: Legion and.. regardless of what people say, it felt nothing like an Aion game.

Aion 2 was announced back at G-Star 2018 – over an entire year ago. And I know that mobile games don’t have nearly as lengthy a development cycle as PC games, so we should be pretty far along by this point.
Which is good news, considering Aion 2, much like Lineage 2M actually looks like it could be a solid title. Aion 2 specifically takes place almost a millennium before its PC predecessor, Aion: The Tower of Eternity.
The game features a brand new PvP system in the form of dimensional cracks, allowing players from various servers to engage with one another in large-scale PvP.
No word on what form gliding or flying will take in-game as of the information we’ve been given thus far but they did reveal that they are removing the gliding constraints that exist in Aion.
NCSoft didn’t go too deeply into detail as to exactly what they meant – maybe something like Perfect World Mobile, I’m not sure, but they wanted to make gliding a more integral part of combat.
“Creating a three-dimensional battle system” is the goal with flight – and that’s.. I dunno.
Aerial PvP was one of the core parts of doing battle in the Abyss, and I had a ton of good times engaging in aerial PvP with other players. They mentioned they wanted to remove gliding restraints – but made no mention of flight itself.
If they opted to remove flight, or at least gliding.. I dunno. It wouldn’t be an Aion game to me.
And with the state that Aion for PC is currently in, I feel like we need some positivity in the form of the Aion IP.

When asked to elaborate on what the game would offer, NCSoft stated that Aion 2 would actually introduce features into the game which were unable to be realized in the original PC iteration due to limitations at the time of development.
This time, with the technology at their disposal, they feel like it’ll be possible to fully achieve their vision. In their words, “it will no longer be a dream.”

As I’m sure you’re aware, the basic premise of Aion is that there are two opposing factions: Both the Elyos and the Asmodians.
They’ve been at war for however long – I’m not entirely sure as I don’t recall that ever being addressed, and you get to choose between one of the two factions when beginning the game.
Since Aion 2 is set 900 years before the beginning of the PC game, NCSoft have removed the opposing-faction theme, instead allowing players to play as whatever they like and do battle with whomever they want to.
This means that you’ll find Elyos vs Elyos and Asmodian vs Asmodian out in the world. Not only are they removing factions – but they’re also claiming to have done away with – and I quote – “class segmentation.”
This means that there are no basic classes, instead, players are able to wield various different weapons without restrictions. I know that this is good in theory, but removing class identity isn’t the way to improve on the game.
People like choosing their class, people like being able to identify other players’ class. Class identity is an integral part of an MMO and this is just an all together strange move.
Additionally, NCSoft have made bold claims that the combat itself will be completely different to its predecessor as well, stating “there will be a new battle system that did not exist in the old Aion.”
Does that mean that it’s just going to have the basic combat system present in most mobile MMOs churned out these days? I guess we’ll need to wait and see from additional footage that they supply in the future, but I’m a little disconcerted with that info, honestly.

NCSoft are aiming high – exactly what they’ll be capable of achieving remains to be seen, though.
See, Aion is a great quality MMO. Yes, it has its issues, nobody can argue otherwise.
But back years ago the game was probably one of the best MMOs on the market. It catered to the ArcheAge crowd – players that were interested in open-world PvP while still having the freedom to PvE as they wanted.
Over time things changed, but that’s how these things go. MMOs – and even games – evolve, not always for the better.

I’m left curious of the supposed additional features they plan on adding to Aion 2, however.
I know that certain aspects of the game are going to be required to be altered – that makes sense. It is going to be on mobile devices after all and mobile MMOs are quite different to PC MMOs both aesthetically and mechanically.
So my hope is that their goal isn’t to put the majority of their effort into Lineage 2M due to the anticipated success of the game and leave both Aion 2 and Blade & Soul 2 underdeveloped.

The engine Aion 2 is being developed on is currently unknown – I’m guessing Unreal Engine 4 since that seems to be the default these days but the trailer itself looks damn good.

And that’s everything we know right now. I’m kinda excited and kinda on the fence.

I have quite the history when it comes to Aion.
I played the MMO a little when it was pay to play but was too poor to afford to continue to play it. I played it a lot when it went free to play, but after a while moved on to other MMOs like we all do. Then, finally, I got to play it as part of the MMOByte channel.
And that’s where we are now. At the end of 2019, fresh off the release of Gameforge’s 7.2 update that introduced a ton of new stuff to the game.
The painter class in specific was of particular interest to me because it’s a class I’ve been interested in for a while now ever since it was revealed months ago.
To my surprise, Gameforge reached out to me shortly after and asked if I’d be interested in them sponsoring a look at the new class. Naturally I said hell yeah ’cause.. well, I get to play the new class and have some fun leveling it and testing it out.
And that’s what this video’s about. Well, that and the general state of the game in 2019 – Gameforge’s EU servers, anyway, not the North American version of the game from NCSoft.

So if you don’t already know what Aion is, lemme give you a quick rundown. Aion is a free to play tab-target MMORPG. If you’re looking for something heavy on action then this is definitely not gonna do it for you.
However, in terms of tab-target combat, Aion has been and likely will be for the forseeable future at the top of its game, offering us an extensive combo skill system, tons of classes and a lot of personal customization.
If you’re looking for a tab-target MMO then you won’t really get much better than this.
A lot has changed over the last several updates – enough so that it makes the game feel like an entirely new journey to progress through.

In specific, the 7.0 update added the brand new Dumaha region, various new mission types and rewards for completing missions, dungeons, raids, obviously the brand new Painter class, tons of new quests, story and a heck of a lot more.
Then the 7.2 update that just launched a few weeks ago introduced Red Katalam – a new way for players to do battle with one another in large-scale garrison sieges that take place cross-server.
The battle in specific can hold up to 2,000 players, is only available at certain times of the day, offers a brand new type of PvP equipment and provides both PvP and PvE activities for those of you only interested in one form or the other.
Then there’s the brand new Orbis Training Arena that allows you to take part in secret fights.

The thing I really want to touch on though is the new class, the Painter. After seeing the trailer for it I was ecstatic. This looked like a bright, vibrant new class to try out and I was right.
It was about as fun as it looked like it would be. You have a lotta attacks that allow you to splooge everywhere, coating everything in your own gooey death-filled goodness.
A new hairstyle was introduced for the class – which is probably the most detailed hair in-game. Naturally I had to opt for it because that’s the kinda guy I am. I see something higher quality than everything else.. that’s what I go for.
Then I proceeded to make my character, using Aion’s character creator which to date is still one of the best in the MMO scene. Nothing beats trying and failing to kill an enemy that’s about 6 inches high slicing up your ankles.

Speaking of PvP, we actually got to participate in some open-world battles. Unfortunately I only recorded one or two of them but we repeatedly got ganked by players when they thought we were alone.
Little did they know that Mrs Stix and I are always within a few seconds of one another, and this time we were accompanied by a friend of ours, Kaprii.
She played healer so Mrs Stix and I could both try out the new class. And man is the Painter powerful.
We have unbelievably hard-hitting AoEs that left me a little speechless. I’ve never seen enemies die as fast as they did while playing this class, and putting two of us together allowed us to group together 2 separate groups of 5 to 10 enemies at a time.
Of course we did need a healer for this because we’re beyond squishy. We do wear cloth after all. At least I think we wear cloth. You wouldn’t think it looking at our gear, though. Like seriously.
Just take a moment here and look at some of the gear we’ve equipped thus far. This is high-tier armor crafted with protection in mind. Ain’t no pesky monsters gonna scar up this lady right here, no sir.
Jokes aside, very powerful class. I wasn’t sure whether we’d be close-range, mid-range or long-range but from what I can tell, the majority of my skills with the exception of a few AoEs were all long-range.
Meaning that we play more like a mage class unless we want to AoE, which takes the form of close to mid-range combat.

Another thing I noticed which wasn’t a thing the last time I played was that all of the instances are now co-operatively doable in a group.
Meaning that every instance – or at least the vast majority of instances we had to run while continuing to progress through the story were doable with all 3 of us.
This did admittedly make them easier and faster, but instanced content should always be done as a group. This is a welcome change that is long overdue.

If you haven’t played Aion in a little while then you’ll notice that the leveling experience has been much more streamlined, making achieving max level significantly more tolerable.
I remember having to grind for months to hit level 55, then you’d be required to grind for another year to get decent gear.
Currently, max level is achievable in probably a week or two if you play it for a few hours each day, or if you’d rather no-life it and hit it without break, you can probably max out in around a day, a day and a half.
But what’s the purpose of that? Part of enjoying the game is the journey, after all. And the journey I had with Mrs Stix and Kaprii was a lotta fun.
I’m glad changes have been made to make the game more accessible. I thoroughly enjoy the new Painter class and by the time I do the next Aion video I’ll be at max level, showcasing endgame content for everyone.

Again, if you’re interested in playing Aion, I urge you to play on Gameforge’s servers because they’re just more populated. You don’t really have any latency issues – I play from North America and my ping is good enough that I don’t suffer any input delay.

NCSoft has opted to release information on 2 new upcoming MMORPGs prior to G-Star 2018 this year – and as you guessed from the title, one of them is the highly anticipated prequel to the popular PvPvE MMORPG Aion. Aion 2 takes place 900 years prior to the events of the PC game Aion: The Tower of Eternity. Aion 2 supposedly has a large emphasis on PvP, providing “dimensional cracks” that allow players from various servers to all participate in cross-server large-scale PvP. NCSoft went on to discuss how additional features that not only the company, but also players wanted are capable of being added into the game, claiming that their vision for the game is “no longer a dream”.

One of the largest differences between Aion 2 and Aion: The Tower of Eternity is that there are no longer opposing Elyos vs Asmodian faction based PvP. Players are instead free to choose to invade others regardless of race. Additionally, and this may be a negative for players, is that they are removing classes, or, rather “class segmentation”, allowing players to wield a variety of weapons without restricting them to a specific “class” and alter their playstyle accordingly. NCSoft went on to state that “Aion 2 will showcase a new battle system that did not exist in the old Aion.”

Finally, and quite possibly one of the best quality of life changes made in all of Aion is the removal of gliding constraints found throughout Aion. While NCSoft didn’t really go into detail, their aim is to make gliding an active part of combat, creating a “three dimensional battle system”. NCSoft did not mention what engine Aion 2 is going to be developed on, but everyone’s guess is that it will run on Unreal Engine 4.

Oh, right, did I mention Aion 2 will be on Mobile devices only? Yeah, it looks as though NCSoft have abandoned the PC market and are moving towards the mobile market with both MMORPG announcements landing on mobile devices.

NCSoft, the team behing Blade and Soul, Aion, WildStar, Lineage and more have revealed their plan to release a new PC MMORPG – yes, you heard that correctly: PC MMORPG – not a mobile port, not a mobile remastering.. A PC Aion MMORPG set in the Aion world. As of right now specifics are being kept under wraps as it is supposed to be kept “top secret”. All that is known thus far is that it is an MMORPG built on Unreal Engine 4 in the Aion universe.

This came to light with the recent job opening from NCSoft describing a new “next-generation console and PC MMORPG” project, utilizing 3DS Max to “create character / monster / animation resources for the concept and development environment.”

Unreal Engine 4 has given us some of the best looking games to date, with games like ARK: Survival Evolved, the new Final Fantasy VII Remake, Geare of War 4, Injustice 2, Kingdom Hearts III, Octopath Traveler and more.

Below is an example of what Unreal Engine 4 is capable of.

While this is by no means guaranteed for the next game in the Aion franchise, it is nevertheless something to look forward to.

NCSoft just announced that they are going through with the release of their next major update for Aion, titled: Heart of Frost. It is confirmed to be hitting the official game’s servers on Jaunary 10, 2018.

The Heart of Frost update takes players back to the Abyss Core and Diving Fortress, ready to take the fight directly to Ereshkigal’s forces – where they are currently residing, and growing in number. Players are tasked with reclaiming the Divine Fortress and driving back the advancing icy army.

NCSoft have detailed two separate additions to the update thus far.

The first being Mirash Sanctum, where Harvesters are attempting to experiment with Drana in an attempt to resurrect Ereshkigal’s fallen troops.

The second being the Frozen Monolith – where a rumor is going around regarding a powerful guardian that could potentially be linked to Ereshkigal’s influence in the Abyss.

NCSoft went on to further mention that this is only a small amount of what the new Heart of Frost update has to offer its players. They will continue releasing additional information as we get closer to its official release on January 10.