AION 2 Founder's Packs Now Include 30 Days of Membership

On August 7, 2026, NC ran its first community livestream for the global release of AION 2 — "Beyond the Abyss: Global Release Preview", now archived as an hour-long VOD on the AION 2 Official YouTube channel. The headline change came from NC America's Executive Publishing Producer Merv Lee Kwai: all three Founder's Pack tiers will now include 30 days of Membership, and the grant applies retroactively to every pack already bought since the packs went on sale on July 22. Nobody needs to re-buy or upgrade to get it.

This was the single loudest omission in the original pack listings. As published on July 22, Standard ($24.99), Deluxe ($49.99) and Ultimate ($99.99) each bundled the 5-day advance access, a consumables chest, a Unique-grade title and — at the higher tiers — cosmetics, but none of them included any Membership time. NC framed the change on stream as a direct response to community feedback.

As of August 10, 2026, NC has not published a separate notice-board post restating the change; the livestream is the primary record. The Steam listings are unchanged so far — the Founder's Pack page still shows the three tiers at €21.25 / €42.49 / €84.99 with the "Advance Access — Starts 30 Sep" label, and the pack descriptions have not been rewritten to list the Membership. Treat the stream statement as the authoritative version until NC updates the store copy.

The Membership is not a cosmetic perk. Per NC's July 8 Business Model notice, the $15/month Membership is what unlocks the in-game market, the Kina↔Quna exchange and a subscriber-only cash-shop tier — which is why the Western model has been described as free-to-play with the player economy sitting behind a paywall. Adding 30 days to the packs means a Founder's buyer can actually trade and use the auction house through the head start and the first weeks of launch without a second purchase. Our free-to-play and monetization guide covers how the Kina/Quna split and the Membership gate work in full.

One related detail from the same stream: the cosmetics bundled in the Founder's Packs will not be sold separately in the cash shop for the global version. That is a deliberate divergence from the Korean service, where the equivalent skins are shop items. NC did not say whether that exclusivity is permanent or time-limited.

The global build is not a straight port of the live Korean version. On stream NC confirmed that dungeon party size rises from four players to five, and that the game's first raid content moves from an eight-player group to ten. (Coverage labelled the second change slightly differently — Massively OP describes it as the first raid, MMORPG.com as the Sanctuaries content — so treat the exact content name as unsettled while the numbers themselves are consistent.) The AION 2 Steam page description now matches, advertising "solo challenges, 5-player party content, and 10-player group dungeons" across 200-plus dungeons.

On the PvP side: the objective-based 10v10 battleground mode will normalise player stats, so gear gaps do not decide those matches. A PvP toggle flag will also be available from the start everywhere except the Abyss, which stays faction-versus-faction PvP by default. NC also discussed 1v1 nightmare boss fights, the two dungeon difficulties (exploration and conquest), class archetypes, and timed objectives in the Abyss — none of which carried hard numbers we would report as confirmed.

Five server regions were confirmed for global launch: NA West, NA East, South America, Central Europe, and Japan. Importantly, there is no region locking between them, so players are not restricted to their nearest cluster. That is a more granular breakdown than the "North America, South America, Europe, and Asia" phrasing NC used in its June launch press release.

Smaller confirmations from the stream: the maximum pet level drops from five to three, which NC framed as a grind reduction; there will be four character slots at launch; wings will have visible stats but wing skins bought from the cash shop confer no stats whatsoever; and character/outfit customisation was shown in some depth.

What the stream did not deliver was a calendar date for the free-to-play launch. As of August 10, 2026, Early Access on September 30 remains the only official date, Steam's release field still reads "September 2026", and NC has not named the launch day — a 5-day head start starting September 30 implies early October, but that is arithmetic, not an announcement. Several aggregator sites are currently publishing "October 5" as though it were confirmed; we have found no NC source or reputable outlet for it. Our release date guide tracks the official position as it firms up.