AION 2's Steam Listing Sets the Global Launch for October 5 at 13:00 UTC

AION 2 now has a launch hour. Steam's record for the game (app 3393110) sets its release to Monday, October 5, 2026 at 13:00:00 UTC. The record lists it twice, as the release date and as the store release date, and it was last updated on September 21, 2026. Steam's public store data agrees on the day, showing October 5, 2026 and a "coming soon" state, with NC as publisher and developer.

This is the time Steam is set to switch AION 2 from "coming soon" to released. The publisher sets it on its own listing, so it is the most precise launch time NC has published anywhere so far. It is not shown on the store page itself, which displays the date only; the hour lives in Steam's record for the app, which SteamDB mirrors.

The day itself is not new. NC announced October 5 at gamescom Opening Night Live in August, as covered in our October 5 launch date story. What changes today is the hour.

13:00 UTC on Monday, October 5, 2026 is:

• US West (PDT, UTC−7)6:00 AM
• US East (EDT, UTC−4)9:00 AM
• Brazil (BRT, UTC−3)10:00 AM
• UK (BST, UTC+1)2:00 PM
• Central Europe (CEST, UTC+2)3:00 PM
• Eastern Europe (EEST, UTC+3)4:00 PM
• Japan (JST, UTC+9)10:00 PM

Every zone above is still on summer time on October 5; clocks change later in the month in Europe and in early November in the US. The countdown on our homepage converts the same moment to your own time zone automatically.

NC has not announced the hour in a notice. Its English announcements board had nothing new about launch timing as of September 21, 2026; the newest entry is the September 19 post closing the Launch Scale Test. Until NC confirms it, treat 13:00 UTC as the time on Steam's listing rather than an announcement. Publishers do adjust these timestamps close to launch, and we will update this page if the record moves or NC posts a time.

Two related questions stay open. First, whether NC's servers open at the same minute Steam flips the game to released; a launch-day maintenance window has not been announced either. Second, the start time of Founder's Pack Early Access on September 30: Steam's record lists Advanced Access on that day with no hour attached, so we do not publish one.

Founder's Pack Early Access runs from September 30 to October 4, five days, for owners of any of the three Founder's Pack tiers, on the platform the pack was bought on. The free-to-play launch for everyone follows on October 5, now at 13:00 UTC per Steam. NC's notes on how Early Access servers relate to launch servers are in our Early Access servers explainer, and the full timeline is kept current in the release date guide.