The year 2025 is not marked by major MMORPG releases, and with Aion 2, the most important title has now been lost.
Which release has been cancelled? The MMORPG Aion 2 was probably the big title that all fans of the genre were looking forward to. The reasons for this can already be found in the development:
- With NCSoft as the publisher and developer, experienced MMORPG developers are working on Aion 2
- The MMORPG is supposed to be developed with the beautiful and gamer-favored Unreal Engine 5
- Over 300 employees are supposed to work on the project to ensure everything goes smoothly by the release
The MMORPG itself also sounds interesting. Aion 2 is the successor to the popular Aion and takes place 900 years before it. It has no class restrictions and was originally intended to focus more on an international audience. The emphasis was on story and PvE, while PvP was intended to be present, it was always meant as an addition.
Now, the release of Aion 2 in the West has been cancelled for this year, and Throne and Liberty is partly to blame.
Here you can watch the trailer for Aion 2:
No release in the West for now
What has changed in the development? So far, NCSoft has always communicated the second half of 2025 as the start date for Aion 2. Now, the developers publicly discussed the ongoing projects in their conference call with the company’s investors.
They also talked about Aion 2: “As promised, the MMORPG Aion 2 is supposed to initially be released this year in Korea and Taiwan.” Thus, the MMORPG will only initially be released in Korea and Taiwan, and not globally as previously assumed.
When it will be available in the West is only roughly known: “The global service of the game will be implemented shortly based on the business experiences of Throne and Liberty.”
What does this mean? If NCSoft wants to follow the same path with Aion 2 as with the MMORPG Throne and Liberty from the same company, the MMORPG will first run for a while in Asia before it comes to the West. For Throne and Liberty, there was about a 9-month gap between the release in Asia and the rest of the world (via NCSoft.com).
For the Western release, many game mechanics would also be adjusted to make the MMORPG less time-consuming, and it would ensure that there are fewer mechanisms perceived as unfair than in the original version from Asia. The monetization of the F2P MMORPG might also differ.
In Korea and Taiwan, the marketing for Aion 2 is set to start in the second quarter. Here, we will be able to see for the first time what the MMORPG is all about. Of the 6 MMOs that MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz was looking forward to, only 5 are left. You can find out which ones here: Which MMOs will rock 2025? I’m particularly excited about 6 games
