Aion 2 Q&A: NVIDIA DLSS 5 Confirmed in the Works; Console Launch Is Coming, but Cross-Play Likely Isn't

With Aion 2's global launch now less than a month away, NC has brought the MMORPG to gamescom 2026 with a straightforward pitch: this is the game the original Aion was always meant to be. At the beginning of the presentation, the developers stressed that the 2008 original was limited by the technology of its era, while Unreal Engine 5 finally lets the team realize that vision at the scale it was originally imagined. The world of Atreia is now a fully open, seamless MMORPG world, and the claim is the ambitious kind: if you can see it on the horizon, you can probably fly to it. That's one of the main hooks, obviously. Flight was Aion's signature nearly two decades ago, and it remains a big focus here. A double jump at essentially any point puts you in the air, and it's worth pointing out that this isn't a gated ability tied to specific zones the way flight worked in the original. Eight classes are available at launch. Gladiator is the heavy melee option, Templar the mainline tank, and Assassin covers stealth and precision strikes. Ranger fights at a distance with a bow, Sorcerer handles fire and ice magic, and Spirit Master summons elemental spirits to fight alongside them. Cleric is the traditional support class with the all-important resurrection, while Chanter sits between DPS and healing. 2 of 9 Over 200 Customization Options and 800 Pieces of Clothing Character creation is where NC spent a decent chunk of the presentation, although that's only surprising to those who don't remember that the first Aion offered by far the best character creation tool of its time and inspired many others to this day. The numbers for this sequel are large: there are over 200 ways to customize your character, and the same fidelity applied to the world has been applied to faces and bodies. You're adjusting hair, body type, and details as granular as pupil size. The standout for the presenter was the curtain hair system, which lets you adjust the gradient and set precisely where the curtain falls. There's a randomizer too, which is sensible given how overwhelming the number of options could be. The stated goal is that no two characters will ever look alike. The Wardrobe system is equally extensive, with over 800 pieces of clothing unlockable purely through exploration and questing. Every slot from headpiece to boots can be individually set, and this is a full transmog system, so your actual equipment sits underneath while the cosmetics show. Weapon skins work the same way. There are cosmetics available in the shop as well, of course, since this is a free-to-play game. 2 of 9 Wings Are a Collection System, Not Just Traversal The developers introduced Aion 2's Wings as a deep collection system, more than just a means of traversal. The more you explore, the more wings you unlock, and each set carries flight power, which functions as your flight stamina and determines how long you can stay airborne. Crucially, only wings earned through gameplay grant that power. Purchased wing items are purely cosmetic, and there's a separate skin slot so you can wear a bought appearance over an earned set. NC gave the example of one wing set that requires repeated dungeon runs to accumulate the crafting materials, which turns your wings into a visible statement about what you've cleared and how many times. One of the cosmetic options, incidentally, turns your wings into a backpack. Pets are the other big collection pillar, with over 200 to gather, and they double as the mount system. Most of them come from the world's monsters. You defeat a mob, take its soul, and convert that into a pet. Each has unique riding animations that match the creature: some you ride on the talons, others perch you on the shoulders. Again, shop pets exist alongside the earned ones. Mounts can be ridden inside dungeons, too, which speeds up the runs. The cat mount leaves flower-shaped paw prints behind it, which is the kind of detail that will sell a lot of cosmetics. 2 of 9 PvE: Nightmare Dungeons, Expeditions, and the Sanctuary Raid NC walked me through three tiers of PvE content: Nightmare Dungeons are the solo offering, pitting the player character against one boss. These bosses appear nowhere else, and they carry mechanics you'll encounter variations of in group content later. It essentially functions as a training ground : learn your class, drill your rotations, master the difficult dodges before you have to do it with nine other people depending on you. Rewards in this mode still contribute to your progression for both PvE and PvP, though. are the solo offering, pitting the player character against one boss. These bosses appear nowhere else, and they carry mechanics you'll encounter variations of in group content later. It essentially functions : learn your class, drill your rotations, master the difficult dodges before you have to do it with nine other people depending on you. Rewards in this mode still contribute to your progression for both PvE and PvP, though. Expeditions are five-player dungeons, each with a distinct environment, color palette, and set of enemies. There are no class requirements when queuing, so an all-DPS or all-Cleric group is technically possible, though the demo ran a conventional Sorcerer, Gladiator, Chanter, Ranger, and Cleric party. The encounter design leans hard on communication , according to the devs. One mechanic marked the Sorcerer with an eye icon and made her the center of a moving safe zone, forcing the group to either follow her or coordinate her movements, which was complicated by a red danger circle that required people to clear her area. Between fights, Windstreams handle traversal. These exist both in dungeons and out in the open world, ferrying you between points without consuming wing stamina, and they double as a chance to sit back and look at the scenery. are five-player dungeons, each with a distinct environment, color palette, and set of enemies. There are no class requirements when queuing, so an all-DPS or all-Cleric group is technically possible, though the demo ran a conventional Sorcerer, Gladiator, Chanter, Ranger, and Cleric party. , according to the devs. One mechanic marked the Sorcerer with an eye icon and made her the center of a moving safe zone, forcing the group to either follow her or coordinate her movements, which was complicated by a red danger circle that required people to clear her area. Between fights, Windstreams handle traversal. These exist both in dungeons and out in the open world, ferrying you between points without consuming wing stamina, and they double as a chance to sit back and look at the scenery. Sanctuary is the ten-player raid, and it has a rather unusual structure. You enter as two teams of five, fight a mini-boss together, split off to tackle separate bosses in your groups, then reconvene for the finale. The difficulty jump is immediate, with more simultaneous mechanics and added management on top. The final boss showcased a chessboard mechanic, with the floor divided into tiles and the group needing to identify the safe one before an instant-kill attack lands. You commit to a tile, wait, and dodge at the last moment. Red obviously means unsafe, blue means everyone must rush there immediately, or the raid wipes to an incoming meteor. Notably, several players deployed their wings mid-fight. Aerial combat is fully supported in both PvE and PvP, which makes wings a third thing on top of collection and traversal: an active combat mechanic. Following the presentation, I asked the assembled NC team several questions about Aion 2's global launch and roadmap, and received confirmation of a console version and that DLSS 5 integration is still in the works. As a reminder, NCSoft is running a free Aion 2 Launch Scale Test on September 17 and 18, open to anyone via Steam, which includes character customization. Founder's Pack owners get advance access from September 30, and the official launch is set for October 5. Aion 2 Global Launch Q&A How has Aion 2 evolved since the Korean launch, based on player feedback? Namjoon Kim: There are three main changes since launch. First, item progression. In the beginning, it felt somewhat disconnected, a big chunk of progression, then another big chunk. We've reflected player feedback and made it a smooth connection, so nothing is lost in the progression you've accumulated through to the end. Second, we added a lot of quality-of-life features. Third, we tried to minimize daily and weekly content. What I mean is that there's no daily or weekly content gate. You can come to the game whenever you want and enjoy however much of it you want. Does the Western build include all the content available in Korea, or is it behind? Merv Lee Kwai: As you mentioned, there's about a year's worth of content in Korea. The global version will launch with Season 1, the same season Korea and Taiwan originally released with, but a modified version of it, including the quality of life improvements and balance improvements just mentioned. That's the core version we'll launch with. So we have a stable of about a year's worth of content, and then we'll decide what the cadence will be following the release. We'll follow the Korean model closely. In general, they have a new season about every three months, and the global version will be similar, but we'll also use live player data on how quickly players are consuming content and their general speed of progression to make sure we release it at the right time. So you don't plan to play catch-up with Korea? Merv Lee Kwai: There are challenges with the global version that are inherent to publishing, like localization. To be day and date with Korea would be very challenging for us. Not impossible, but challenging. So in general, we're going to be behind Korea by some amount of time, but I don't know exactly how much yet. It could be faster, it could be slower. There are pros and cons to being simultaneous or being slightly delayed. How important is global community feedback now that the game is reaching a much larger audience? Andrew Long: One of the things the Korean team is really great at is weekly live streams where they listen to their players directly. The global team will emulate that model, so we'll be streaming and interacting with players. There are two key changes driven by player requests. The first is that the original version of the game had a dual subscription system, and for the global version we consolidated those subscriptions and reduced the price point to $15. That was heavily driven by player feedback. Additionally, we have Founder's Packs available now, and there was critical feedback about membership not being included in them. We added membership to those packs based on that feedback. So we have a similar mental model of listening to player feedback and making those changes. Of course, sometimes we have to make business decisions rather than simply following player sentiment, so it's always a delicate balancing act. But regardless, we're committed to listening. On top of that, we've had the game in service in Korea for about a year, so we've already listened and reflected player feedback across many updates. Regardless of that, after the global launch, if a lot of feedback comes from the global audience, the dev team is very happy and open to listening and reflecting the necessary feedback and updates as soon as possible. You're advertising the Steam launch and PURPLE, your PC launcher. What about the mobile version? Merv Lee Kwai: For the global version, it's only on PC. Is mobile coming at some point, or is it undecided? Merv Lee Kwai: Sadly, there are no plans for the mobile version. Will the game support controllers? Merv Lee Kwai: Absolutely, controllers are supported. And what are your feelings about a potential console version if there's player demand? Namjoon Kim: As a matter of fact, we're preparing a console launch as well. But our priority is the global launch first, and console support will follow after that. Do you think there will be cross-play between PC and console? Namjoon Kim: We haven't made a clear decision, but we think that for now cross-play probably won't be supported between PC and console, because the usage and the gameplay are different, and the timing of the launch is different for PC and console. It's not confirmed yet, but for now we think it's probably going to be a separate operation. In Korea, PvP is very popular, but in the West, players tend to lean more towards PvE. When it comes to the future roadmap, which will you prioritize? Namjoon Kim: As a matter of fact, we've seen the same trend in Korea. Compared to the past, there are many more players who are PvE-oriented than PvP-oriented. In our initial development phase, we put a lot of focus on PvP. But after a year of service in Korea and Taiwan, we saw the user trend and made the decision to minimise forcing people into PvP who don't want it. People can make a choice. If you want to participate, you can. If you don't, you don't have to. That's also going to be our direction going forward. I think we have to strike the right balance between PvP and PvE. I was at NVIDIA earlier and watched the DLSS 5 presentation. Aion 2 was one of the games listed in the original announcement, so I wanted to know whether you still plan to add it to your game. Namjoon Kim: We're already working on it. DLSS 4.5 is already live in Aion 2. As for DLSS 5, we're preparing it and working together with NVIDIA. Great. Thank you for your time. About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games. Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.