AION 2 Review — Great Wings, Separate Grinds, Locked Doors

AION 2 makes pressing buttons look very convincing. The animations are cool, the damage numbers are satisfying, and a burst of attacks can make me happy to keep doing the same thing. The problem is that doing the same thing eventually becomes part of the complaint.

I played around 29 hours on PC through Steam as an Elyos Assassin. I never played the original AION, so I came into this without nostalgia or a list of things I wanted the sequel to bring back. I wanted to grind with friends and enjoy the combat. I got plenty of the second part, but the first did not work out quite how I hoped.

I have mostly stopped playing now, and this is a review written after stepping away rather than while planning my next session. There is enough here that I genuinely enjoyed to give it a 7/10. There is also a clear reason I stopped: some features are locked behind payment, and the market requires a subscription. Between that divide, the solo levelling, and progression that did not meaningfully change my combo, the pretty attacks were no longer enough to keep me around.

What kind of game is it?

AION 2 is a free-to-play MMORPG developed and published by NC, released on Steam for PC on 5 October 2026. It uses Unreal Engine 5, and the basic setup has players choose between the Elyos and Asmodian factions and ascend as a winged Daeva.

NC puts aerial combat and verticality at the center of the pitch, advertising a world 36 times larger than the original AION. The advertised activities include more than 200 dungeons across solo, five-player, and ten-player formats, alongside seasonal challenges, rankings, and open-world events. There is clearly a much broader list of things on offer than I can meaningfully assess from my own time.

My experience was more straightforward: playing an Assassin, enjoying how the action looked and felt, and seeing whether the grind gave my friends and me a reason to stay together. That last part matters more to my verdict than the size of the feature list.

The combat makes a very good argument

Combat is easily one of AION 2's best parts. It is fun, it looks great, and I love the way damage numbers and bursts of attacks come together. There is a satisfying spectacle to it that makes the basic act of fighting enjoyable even when I am not doing anything especially complicated.

I would not dress up my experience as a constant exercise in tactical brilliance. A lot of it felt like button-mashing. The important part is that the animations made that button-mashing feel good. Sometimes I do not need a complicated explanation for why I am enjoying myself. Sometimes the attacks just look really cool.

That is also why I do not want the criticisms to erase what works. I can be disappointed by the longer-term progression and still think the immediate combat is very good. Those are different things. AION 2 is much better at making the next burst look satisfying than it was at making my Assassin feel different as I progressed.

The visuals hold up their end

The visuals are the other big positive. Alongside the combat, they are the part I can most comfortably praise. The game gives all those flashy attacks a good-looking setting, and its presentation makes a strong case for spending time in the world.

Character creation offers more than 200 options, and there are outfits, mounts, and wings to collect. That is the official feature list, not a claim that I explored every option or chased every collectible. It does, however, fit the emphasis on how your character looks.

Looking good is not a substitute for progression or a reason to accept the payment restrictions. It is still a genuine strength. My issue was never that AION 2 failed to look appealing. It was that the things surrounding that presentation gave me fewer reasons to keep playing.

Levelling alone, even with friends

I joined hoping to grind with friends. Instead, it was easy to reach max level without partying, and we each ended up grinding on our own. We were playing the same MMO, but that did not mean we were actually doing much together.

I do not think every levelling activity needs to force a group. Being able to make progress alone is useful. What disappointed me was how unnecessary cooperation felt during that process. The game did not give us enough reason to turn the shared intention of playing together into an actual shared grind.

That distinction matters for a recommendation. If someone wants an MMO they can comfortably grind solo, the same accessibility could be a positive. For me, coming in specifically to play with friends, it made levelling feel like separate activities rather than a reason to party up. The availability of group content does not change how that part of my experience felt.

Progression without a new rhythm

My problem with character progression is simple: the combo I used early on was the same combo I used late on. I was moving forward, but the way I played did not feel like it was moving forward with me.

This is where the strength of the combat runs into its limit. The animations can make a familiar sequence enjoyable, but they cannot make it feel new forever. I wanted progression to give me more of a sense that my Assassin was evolving in how I actually fought, rather than leaving me with essentially the same routine.

I am not claiming there is no progression system or that every class feels this way. This is how my Assassin felt across my time with the game. The combat remained fun to perform, but the progression around it did not feel particularly rewarding.

One PvP match left a bad impression

I tried PvP once, in a 1v1, so this is a first impression rather than a verdict on the entire PvP experience. What bothered me was that after winning a round, my health was not reset for the next one. I had to continue fighting with the health I had left.

That did not feel like a true 1v1 to me. I wanted the next round to begin on an even footing, rather than carry the previous round's remaining health into it. Whatever the intended logic behind that setup, it felt unfair from my side.

One match is not enough for me to judge overall balance, other matchups, or the wider competitive game. It is enough to explain why the mode did not make a good first impression on me. I would not point someone toward PvP on the strength of my own experience.

The paywall is why I stepped away

The biggest issue, and the reason I mostly stopped playing, is that some features are locked behind payment. The market requires a subscription: subscribers get access, while players who do not subscribe are left without it.

Grinding itself is fine with me. I went into an MMO expecting to grind. What gives the game a bad look is separating players into two groups based on money and putting access to features on the other side of that divide.

I do not need to attach a bigger label to it to explain the objection. The restriction itself is enough. A free-to-play entry point does not stop that boundary from affecting how I feel about continuing, and enjoyable combat does not make it disappear.

The levelling and progression issues had already weakened my interest, but the payment divide was the deciding factor. If the game were simply asking whether I enjoyed fighting enough to keep grinding, my answer would be more positive. Putting the market behind a subscription changes that question in a way I do not like.

Final thoughts

AION 2 gets two important things right: combat and visuals. I enjoyed the flashy attacks, the damage numbers, and the burst, even when what I was doing amounted to button-mashing. Those strengths are real, and they explain why this is a 7/10 rather than a dismissal.

The weaker parts are what stopped those enjoyable moments from becoming a longer-term commitment. Playing with friends turned into separate solo grinds. My combo did not meaningfully change between the early and late game. My single PvP match left me unhappy with how health carried between rounds. Then the subscription-locked market gave me a clear reason to step away.

I would recommend AION 2 to players who genuinely enjoy grinding, especially if they do not mind paying for a subscription to unlock features like the market. It is also an easy recommendation for anyone who loves character creation, because the game puts a lot of attention into how your Daeva looks. I would be more cautious if the main attraction is levelling together with friends, deeper changes to how a character plays, or fair-feeling PvP. And if a subscription gate bothers you the way it bothered me, that is the biggest warning I can give from my time with it.

For me, 7/10 fits a game I enjoyed playing more than I enjoyed the reasons it gave me to stay. The attacks looked great. I just wanted more of a reason to keep using them, preferably alongside my friends and without a subscription gate to the market.