AION 2 Launch Drew a Record Steam Crowd. Then the Reviews Turned

The AION 2 Launch was the biggest thing to happen to PC gaming this month, and it took exactly one day. NCSoft's massively multiplayer online game went live worldwide in the first week of October, and SteamDB recorded a peak of three hundred ninety-seven thousand nine hundred five players logged in at the same time. The company says the all-platform total, including players on its own Purple launcher, climbed higher still, according to The Elec's report on the launch numbers.

That crowd did not come out of nowhere. The game is the sequel to Aion, the 2008 original that built its name on wings, and this one doubles down on the fantasy of flight: aerial combat and exploration from the sky are central to everything, not an add-on. Built in Unreal Engine 5, it carries the old Elyos-versus-Asmodian faction war into a new story set two centuries later. A five-day early access period for Founders Pack buyers starting September 30 drew a peak of one hundred seventy-one thousand five hundred thirty players, and the free-to-play launch more than doubled that. The release spans four regions and eight languages, from English and Spanish to Japanese and Korean.

Why everyone showed up at once

Players had reasons beyond nostalgia. Early reviews praised the graphics, the detailed character creator, and a combat system that finally makes the sky a real battlefield instead of a travel lane. The launch instantly made the game one of the most-played titles of the year on Steam, leapfrogging heavy hitters like Resident Evil Requiem and Forza Horizon 6 to sit fourth among 2026 releases, TheGamer noted. For a genre many had written off as a relic of the 2010s, that is a genuine jolt of energy. It also landed in a stacked month: our look at Twitch's 2026 gaming report shows just how much attention the medium is commanding this fall.

Then the pay-to-win fight started

The trouble began almost as fast as the player count climbed. NCSoft sells a paid membership, two battle passes and cosmetic items on top of the free download, and players quickly decided the membership was not optional in any honest sense. Without it, access to the in-game marketplace and auction house comes with restrictions, and real money can be converted through the Kinah and Quna currency exchange into wealth that buys gear and faster progression. The membership is tied to individual servers rather than the whole account, and separate progression passes must be bought per character. Paying members also get more dungeon entries, which means faster advancement by the swipe of a card.

The community's verdict was blunt. One widely shared Steam review called it a game designed around its monetization rather than its players. Another veteran of the original wrote that it had nothing to do with the first game anymore and predicted it would become pay-to-win, guaranteed. The numbers back up the mood: the Steam rating slid from the high sixties into Mixed territory within days, with only about three in five reviewers recommending it. As reported by Notebookcheck's breakdown of the backlash, the monetization complaints dwarf every other criticism, from a repetitive endgame to performance hiccups.

The AI art problem underneath

Money is not the only sore spot. NCSoft built a proprietary AI framework called VARCO into the game's production, which generates text, assets, audio, code and even runs QA checks. The game's Steam disclosure admits that some in-game assets were created with AI assistance, specifying Arcana card designs and some icons. TheGamer reported that the key art looks quite clearly AI-generated, and GamesRadar noted that negative reviews also targeted content players described as AI slop. The developers have not said how much of the game was actually made with these tools, which is exactly what bothers players: they paid with their time and wallets for a handcrafted world and got a disclosure instead, as TheGamer's report on the AI controversy details. It is the same trust gap hitting the whole industry, from Call of Duty's Nintendo return to every AI-assisted asset debate in between.

Wall Street noticed, then flinched

The launch moved markets before it moved review scores. NCSoft shares rose more than fourteen percent over two trading days during the early access period, closing October 2 at two hundred forty-four thousand five hundred won. Then the mood turned: as launch numbers came in below investor expectations, the stock slid, and NH Investment and Securities cut its price target, according to market coverage. NC America co-CEO Merv Lee Kwai had called the early numbers "a strong start" and promised the shop would focus on cosmetics rather than competitive advantage. Players are now holding him to that sentence, line by line, and the share price is doing the same.

Should you actually play it

Here is the honest counterpoint the review wars miss: the game itself is free, the flying really is fun, and a massive day-one crowd means dungeons actually fill. If you can treat the cash shop as scenery and play at your own pace, there is a gorgeous MMO waiting. If you want to compete at the highest level without paying, the current design will tax your patience in ways that feel deliberate.

History offers both hope and warning. The original Aion received expansions for seven years after its release, so NCSoft knows how to run a long game, but only if the community sticks around. The same week proved turnarounds are possible: ARC Raiders climbed back past one hundred thirty thousand concurrent players after its Frozen Trail update, and Valve's invite-only Deadlock broke Team Fortress 2's all-time Steam record with a peak above two hundred sixty-two thousand. Launch numbers buy attention. Trust buys years. With awards season voting now open, as covered in our Golden Joystick rundown, the industry will be watching whether the AION 2 Launch is remembered for its record crowd or its review-score slide.