My first MMO was Ultima Online, and despite the fact that my computer could barely run it, UO kicked off a long love affair with the genre that included time with games like EverQuest, Star Wars Galaxies, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, FFXI and FFXIV, World of WarCraft, and a lot more. But I never really got into the Korean aspect of the scene, so when I got the chance to see Aion 2 at Summer Game Fest, I was both interested and knew I had some learning to do. My time with Aion 2 wasn’t hands-on, but I got to sit down with several members of the Aion 2 team – including Chief Business Officer Seung-Uk Baek, Director of Operations Daniel Lafuente, Executive Publishing Producer Merv Lee Kwai, Publishing Producer Scott Choi, and Senior Live Ops Producer Andrew Long. It’s rare for so many people from a studio to be present for a demo, but it helped me understand what Aion 2 was. By the time I walked out of that room, I came away with a much better appreciation for what it was and why you might want to check it out when it hits the West in September.

My demo started with a look at the character creator, which is… extensive, to say the least. You can make the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen or a weird little gremlin, and that’s rad. There’s a ton of hairstyles and faces and skin tones and eye and mouth shapes and sliders for absolutely everything. Back when my dad started playing MMOs for the first time, he’d get stuck on World of WarCraft’s character creator for hours. I had to kind of remind him there was a game that came with it. Now, that’s a solid character creator, but it wasn’t exactly dripping with options at the time (and in fact it’s still fairly limited). I think if I gave him Aion 2’s, his head would explode. The team emphasized that this level of detail was intentional so players could create whoever they wanted, and based on what I saw of the demo, they succeeded.

Once in the world, I got to see what Aion 2 has to offer. It’s an absolutely gorgeous video game, but the first place my eyes went was our demo character’s wings. See, your character is a Daeva who fights for one of two factions – the Elyos, guardians or light, or the Asmodians, who were forged in shadow. You don’t start off with your wings, the team told me; you have to earn them. But once you do, you can take flight any time, which looks both fast and incredible, so if you see something in Aion 2’s world, you can probably go there. But flying isn’t the only way to get around. There are also pets, which double as mounts. One of them was a really adorable cat. Pretty regular sized, at least as a pet. But if you wanna ride that thing around, it becomes this massive, adorable mount, and that seems to be standard for your mounts.

There are also pets, which double as mounts. One of them was a really adorable cat.

Part of that speaks to one of Aion 2’s core components: collecting stuff, whether it’s pets or wings or whatever else. And the team tells me there are lots of ways to do that. You might get gear by defeating certain bosses, completing quest chains, playing mini-games, or repeatedly killing a monster in the world and acquiring its data.

Upgrading your character works in a similar manner. Obviously, you have levels and experience and loot and a story to progress through and all that good stuff, but there’s also stuff in the world to find, too. While the team was showing me the demo, I noticed that there were feathers on the map and in the game world, and I asked about them. Turns out these are collectibles scattered throughout the world that power up your character’s ability to fly, and there are a lot of them to find. You could just spend a day chilling and tracking them down if you wanted to, and that rules. And since there are no loading screens in Aion 2, the world is your oyster.

But of course, that’s not all there is to do. You’ve also got instanced content called Nightmares against big bosses, and it’s there I got to see some of Aion 2’s combat. If you’ve only played the more popular MMOs, you’re probably used to slower combat from the genre. That is not how Aion 2 works. This is fast and flashy and responsive. The character used for our demo was incredibly juiced so we could get through the content more quickly, but I could see where the challenge would come from as they dodged attacks and worked through their skills.

I also got a glimpse of four-player party-based content, which looks similarly fast-paced, and the team told me that there’s also more challenging eight-player raids, though I didn’t get to see them. This stuff was less traditional “navigate a bunch of scenarios and regular enemies and then do some boss fights along the way” and more “here’s a cool fight against a boss, go nuts,” but it did look cool.

Finally, we also talked briefly about the world. There are plenty of large cities to vibe in (and they’re not instanced, so you’ll see plenty of other players). But what really interested me was Aion 2’s PvP, which I unfortunately didn’t get to see. It’s entirely opt-in, but there’s a lot of different varieties. There are 1v1, 4v4, and 8v8 modes, as well as realm vs. realm PvP that puts you against a large group of the enemy faction and tasks you with completing objectives. The real sicko stuff, from the sound of it, though, might be Rifts. Rifts open every three hours, and take you to the other faction’s map for some good old-fashioned brawling. Sounds pretty neat.

Aion 2 looks interesting, and there’s no question the team behind it is passionate. MMOs, ultimately, are about connecting with other people. The Aion 2 team told me that they hope to attract people new to the genre and provide a space where they could create memorable experiences. Oh, and the flying and combat don’t seem too shabby, either. That is, if you can pull yourself away from the character creator. Sorry, dad.

Will Borger is an IGN freelancer. You can find him on Bluesky @edgarallanbro.

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