A whole new world!
As we all know, New World is officially closing in January of 2027. That is incredibly close. So, it is on everyone’s mind; where do you move to now? We at the Organ have been following upcoming MMORPGs closely, and the first one to release has been AION 2.
While the AION 2 release is new to us, we would like to acknowledge that it was released to South Korea and Taiwan players in November of 2025. This means that it has essentially had a year of release experience and tweaking, allowing its global release to run much smoother.
To begin, we’ve put together an easy-to-read list of the strengths that each game has.
| New World | AION 2 |
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Finally, we would also like to remind readers that these opinions are based on five years of playing New World and two weeks of playing AION 2; we are bound to know and understand less about AION 2. With the reputation AION has regarding the objectification of female bodies and attraction for “gooners”, we’d also like to make the point that our team consists of two women, one in her twenties and the other in her fifties. So perhaps a different perspective from many others.
Disclaimer – This is obviously a very opinionated article, as everyone has their own gameplay preferences.
Contents
Initial thoughts on AION 2
During the lead up to AION 2’s release, here at the Utopian Organ we were keeping up with updates and, honestly, we were not impressed by the look of the game. From the advertising visuals to gameplay being streamed, it looked ungrounded and messy. At the time of actual release, we planned to play it for one night to “get it over with”, assuming that we would not enjoy it at all and would likely abandon it. Due to this initial outlook, it was both incredibly lucky that the game is free to play and incredibly surprising that we actually enjoyed it.
Character Customisation
In most games, but especially multi-player games, the character you play is incredibly important. In MMORPGs, it is arguably the most important part of a user’s experience. From interactions with other players, to lore building, being a truly unique person is what really makes a game, a story. Creating a personal bond between player and character is what creates user retention, leading to a more invested player base that will fight for the continued development of their game.
| New World | AION 2 | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
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Character Customisation in New World
New World’s character customisation is very simple. The player can choose between two body types; masculine or feminine. They can then choose a preset face to use. There are 22 options that the player can choose from. Then, they choose the skin tone of their character, of which there are 10 of. The most unique and identifying characteristic comes next; the hair & hair colour! At release there were 40 hair styles to choose from, which was increased to 72 at release on console. The hair could be one of 30 colours, of which all the blondes looked bad. Ask anyone, and they won’t believe there were a whole 30 different colours; only about eight got any practical use.
Overall, New World’s character customisation was very limited, consisting of fully pre-determined shapes and colours. That being said, the variety within the presets, especially the faces, is much broader than that of AION 2’s facial presets.
Character Customisation in AION 2
The AION 2 character customisation is incredibly in-depth. Of course, the player starts by being given the option of their presentation; masculine or feminine. After that, they are shown an array of facial presets. There are 44 masculine and 50 feminine preset face options to begin creation with. Once a base is chosen, the player can set some character basics up, such as skin tones (of which there is a whole rainbow to choose from), skin gloss, character voice, and preview lighting.
The preview lighting settings are one of the more mind-blowing things to be able to designate as someone coming from New World. The player can choose from outdoor lighting, indoor lighting, and coloured lighting, all while being able to determine which angle the lighting is coming from too! This really gives the ability to preview how, exactly, your character will look in any situation.
Now that the basics are done, it’s time for customisation. If you’ve only seen advertising material, or even the presets, you may assume that you have to play an anime-style little girl character with big eyes and bigger assets. Extremely satisfyingly, the customisation options allow for actual customisation! You can choose your character’s features quite specifically, being able to make all sorts of beautiful, unique, or monstrous faces. Every feature has sliders that allow the player to adjust minute details. We’ve included some examples of interesting options below.
After the facial structure comes hairstyles. There are only a finite number of options to choose from here, but they are all interesting. Of course, a lot of them are idealised and “perfect”, but it is unheard of to have more complex of a system, like messy hair or unique shavings, so this doesn’t affect our opinion too much. The physics being used allows for long hair to flow satisfyingly, which has always been a sticking point with New World hair. Additionally, the hair’s colour is fully customisable through the colour wheel, which includes a hex code display that can be copy/pasted in. The player can also adjust the shininess of their hair, and have the option to have it two-toned dyed, which is coloured in the same fashion as the initial one – though it only has the option for this to be vertical, not horizontal. The fourth tab of customisation is titled “Style” and allows the player to select some more facial details. Here, we can look through makeup, skin blemishes, tattoos, scars, and facial hair. While all of these options are chosen through preset styles, the player still has plenty of choice in customising them. Every colour being picked uses the same colour wheel & hex code situation, and all facial markings can be custom placed. This means that moles, tattoos, and scars first have their shape chosen and then can be resized, moved, and rotated – though we do note that this is unfortunately not the case for body tattoos. Facial hair allows the player to choose to have only stubble, the intensity of their stubble, or a full-on beard. Equipping a beard also applies matching stubble automatically!
Finally, the player can customise their character’s body. This is done similarly to facial customisation, using many sliders. The body is broken up into body/head, arms, body, and lower body. While the customisation here is still good, and much better than New World, it still feels as though it lacks the specification that all the facial customisation does. Pushing your sliders to their limits more easily creates clipping issues and visual imbalance, while some aspects are still not very customisable at all – we’re looking at you ankles.
Character Customisation Comparison
Overall, it is obvious why we think that AION 2 reigns supreme in character customisation. While it’s not perfect, the pure number of options that players can choose from allows for much more easily obtaining a unique sense of self through your character. My biggest critique of their system is that their presets do not display the range nearly enough. For a game with an entire rainbow worth of skin tones, how do the presets only display maybe three different options – all of which are regular human colours?
On the flip side, New World’s limited character customisation options allowed for every single player character to feel like it fit perfectly into the game world, something that AION 2 is lacking. Allowing players to have unique characters does improve player experience, but is it worth breaking world immersion?
Point to AION
Skins & Transmog
Alongside the character itself’s customisation, the next step to feeling unique is outfits. Both games being discussed currently have transmog systems that allow players to equip outfits unrelated to their gear – let’s see what they do differently.
| New World | AION 2 | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
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New World Skins & Transmog
Here at the Utopian Organ, we have always admired the way that New World implemented its clothing skins, contrary to the general Reddit population. The fact that clothing pieces were displayed the same between both masculine and feminine characters allowed for more unique combinations of character & clothing expression. However, nearer to the end of New World’s lifespan, they did try out having uniquely gendered clothing options with some of the cash shop skins, such as the Sovereign’s Swimwear. This seemed redundant; they could have easily simply released both skin sets and allowed players to choose which presentation they prefer!
Now, New World did not always have a transmog system. Back in the dark ages, players had to sacrifice the quality of their gear to be able to wear the looks that they liked. Obviously, over the lifespan of the game it grew around players’ wants and needs, and the transmog system as it exists today is quite alright.
In New World, item appearances are collected through simply obtaining an item with the appearance you are after. This means that one singular item can be passed from player to player and everyone will unlock the ability to obtain the cosmetic. Once your account has “seen”, or obtained/held, an item, only then can you purchase the full cosmetic. This system has been through many different stages, including the current one where all appearances are available to everyone.
In my opinion, the golden age of New World’s transmog system was near to the beginning of when it was introduced. At this point in time players could freely loot a Transmog Token, the item needed to purchase full appearance availability, from open-world and instanced chests. Of course, the loot drops were limited to allow for demand to build, and eventually cash shop purchases to be made, so not only were these tokens relatively rare, but the number dropped per week was also limited. This, combined with an option for cash shop purchasing, would create an ideal system that balances regular player access with company profit generation.
You have your item skin; now what? Well, in New World, once you had equipped either an item itself or the transmog appearance, you could further customise your look through dye. Dye has a whole process to it itself, including gathering pigments and crafting dye bottles, but at the end of everything the ultimate goal is to dye your outfit! Due to this crafting system, the dye colours available were finite. This created much frustration, especially when trying to make a mix-matched outfit all dye the same colour, as they would apply completely differently to different materials.
AION 2 Skins & Transmog
A couple of things to note right out the gate is that the transmog system is fully released and functional right at (global) release, transmog is fully available for free accounts, and finally, dye and customisation seems to be expensive.
Starting off similarly to above, AION 2 takes the classic route of using completely different clothing models for masculine and feminine characters. This is fine; general player bases seem to like this approach, but it definitely limits the amount of freedom that players have with their overall expression once their initial character gender is picked.
Another note, specifically about the gendered appearance models, is that the feminine clothing options are consistently much more revealing than the masculine ones. It is very difficult to find a nice-looking outfit that will actually cover you up. This is a double-barrelled complaint. Giving feminine characters access to almost solely objectifying outfits (generously 80% of cosmetics could be considered revealing) could be solved in two ways: balance the coverage of outfits between gender expressions or simply allow both genders to equip either model version.
Now, completely differently to New World, AION 2 encourages transmog collection as a part of optimising character stats. Although obviously a long-term goal, collecting all unique appearances gives player stat buffs that effect all combat. To compliment this system, actually obtaining an appearance is more complex than simply holding the item (although it’s not far off). Once in ownership of an item with a skin you’re still missing, you have to “recycle” it and have a percent chance that the appearance will be earned. This action costs you in-game currency, but will also always reward you with enhance stones, which are incredibly useful.
Appearance selection once skins are owned is easy and relatively intuitive. Another feature that AION 2 has directly on (global) release that New World was missing for a long time is gear sets – and outfits is one of the places it’s utilised. The player has access to three different slots to save outfits for their character to wear.
In AION 2, dyeing your outfit is a whole new game. The system allows the player to dye parts of their skins, the same as New World, with any colour available on the colour wheel and the same copy/paste-able hex codes. The next parts are what makes it actually amazing; the player can then choose which material they would like that area to render as! From suede to chrome, car paint to leather, there are so many options that change how reflections and texture works for each part of your outfit. Then, you can choose a pattern to go over that section too, and colour that in the same fashion, using the colour wheel.
Transmog Comparison
There are perfectly balanced complaints for both these games; AION 2 has too many “girly”, objectifying, revealing clothing options and New World has almost none. Women want to be able to make their character pretty, and dress pretty too, but they don’t want to be forced into it.
As this website reflects, we clearly value the transmog in games, especially New World, so it’s extremely satisfying to find a new and improved MMORPG that includes an even more in-depth system for this. There are only a few transmog-related features that I miss from New World while playing AION 2. First, the pigment gathering and dye crafting is one of my favourite parts of New World. Although through its current implementation it does limit the available colours for dye, it could easily be adapted to a more open system like AION 2, where pigments are collected and unlock certain parts of the colour wheel. The second thing is the ability to preview unowned skins on my character in any combination. AION 2 tends to show the player the entire skin set when previewing any item. It would be incredibly helpful to be able to test how different models look together without having to go through with farming the items for them first.
Point to AION
Pets & Mounts
This category might seem a little unbalanced if you played New World for most of its life, but ultimately mounts are a standard within large, open-world games.
| New World | AION 2 | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
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New World Pets & Mounts
New World didn’t have mounts for years, and there are no functional pets. This may seem like a downside, however, I still believe that New World never needed mounts. The world was very traversable without them, especially as development continued and zones got refreshed with new fast travel points. This in mind, having a mount/pet is a very fun feature. New World’s mounts are not particularly complex, but some things that I enjoy are the ability to dye their saddles and/or armour and the ability to assign them custom names. New World mounts are lightly connected to gameplay through the riding skill, which gives you increased speed, and the mount race quests were enjoyed by some, although limited by being solo and unrepeatable.
AION 2 Pets & Mounts
AION 2 has an incredible mount system. There are so many options – 200 of them – and within those, the variety is astounding. As well as being mounts, these creatures also double as pets when not ridden, with no practical value except showing which mount is active.
Players gain pets through harvesting creatures’ souls in the open world. See something you’d like as a pet? Try killing it for a soul, you might just be able to have it. This entangles the pet/mount system with practically all other gameplay, as killing creatures happens through quests, dungeons, and farming. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone that doesn’t have a couple extra mounts!
Now, on top of this, collecting mounts also gives your character stats. There are straight-up stats that owning pets give, such as HP, movement speed, or critical chance, but also genus insights. Those are a whole new world of perks related to enemy types. You can think of the enemy genus’ similarly to New World’s enemy types, but instead of corrupted or angry earth, they have fera or natura. Collecting more pets within a specific genus allows the player to unlock more genus insight perks for that type, ultimately allowing for more character strength overall.
Pets & Mounts Comparison
Clearly, AION 2 cares more about pets and mounts. The way they are integrated into the rest of the gameplay really allows you to passively build your collection, and going back to fill in the gaps is incredibly satisfying. I just wish I could name them all.
Point to AION
Classes
In lots of games classes are a classic, and necessary, part of gameplay. Having distinct character roles, whether for combat or crafting, encourages the social aspect of MMOs – you need to have multiple players, specialised into different roles, to complete different content!
| New World | AION 2 | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
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New World Classes
New World notoriously breaks the MMORPG norm of having strict classes. Having only introduced archetypes – a type of starting point – in the Aternum update of October 2025, four years after the game’s release. This system is one of the best parts of the game, and what makes it so hard to replace.
As of right now, when creating a character in New World the player can choose between seven archetypes. Each archetype starts with a different combination of weapons, as well as boosted gathering, refining, and crafting skills. There are three melee options; Soldier, Destroyer, and Swordbearer, three ranged options; Ranger, Musketeer, and Occultist, and one healer option; Mystic. The most important thing about all of this is that choosing one of these archetypes does not affect the long-term gameplay of your character at all. Every bonus, the weapons and skills, are all relatively minor and players can easily swap between character playstyles whenever they’d like.
The things that determine the “class” that a player is, is their weapons and their attributes. The attributes are derivative of Dungeons & Dragons stats, like most RPGs, and consist of constitution, strength, dexterity, intelligence, and focus. All weapon types in the game scale their damage with these attributes; using a greatsword will scale with strength and dexterity, so if you have particularly high intelligence, it will be wasted. It is incredibly easy to change your attributes too! So, swapping between roles is easy and flexible. For example, if the tank gets tired of a dungeon, someone else who also has a tank build can just swap in.
The way these moving parts slot together does make things more complicated, but it also makes things way more customisable to player preferences. Being able to experiment with unconventional combinations creates much more of a playground for people than being stuck in specific roles.
AION 2 Classes
Contrastingly to New World, but on par with the MMORPG standard, AION 2 uses a fully locked-in class system. Players must choose their character’s class directly after character customisation and are not able to alter this decision later. This is an incredibly important decision that is required to be made before the player even gets a chance to test out the gameplay and combat of each class. Of course, this can be worked around by playing “test” character for each class, but that is a bit of a time sink and also boring! Plus, if you find that you like the fourth or fifth character that you made, it is very unlikely that you customised them fully, and redoing the whole character customisation, creation, and levelling will feel redundant even though it’s the only option. Technically, there are character customisation vouchers, which a couple were given away at launch – a thoughtful idea, as people definitely wouldn’t all be happy with their initial creations.
Now, once you, the player, have decided on which class to play, you are locked into the specific weapons, skills, and dodge animations that come with them. This does mean that you have to choose which group role to play right off the bat; whether you want to tank, heal, or DPS. Luckily, there are some hybrid roles, such as the gladiator, who wields a greatsword, being able to play as an off-tank, and the chanter focuses on party buffing and off-healing. While this creates a little diversity, there is not enough freedom to build a full-on paladin. Like I used to (try to) play in New World…
Classes Comparison
While we were much more divided in our opinion of New World’s class(less) system being superior to AION 2 during the beginning of release, the more we play, the more we can actually understand how build customisation works. Of course, the framework is still rigid, and you will never be able to have the customisability that New World has, but the classes are pretty well-balanced (except for the chanter), and it doesn’t feel like class is the thing holding players back from content.
Point to New World
Combat
This is one of the more complex topics of discussion. We are very likely to have a bias towards New World in more complex issues, as we simply know more about the game. Given extended play time in AION 2, I am sure that our opinions will evolve. To put it simply, from where we stand it looks like New World’s combat is skill-based, and AION 2’s combat is knowledge-based.
| New World | AION 2 | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
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*There may be some overlapping information/points in this section to the Classes section
New World Combat
Another one of New World’s main selling points to us was the combat. None of that icky tab-targeting stuff, all action. New World’s combat is based on the weapon, attribute, and weapon skill tree systems.
Weapons and attributes were briefly discussed above, but weapon skill trees were not; these are the actual meat to the combat system. Each weapon has a basic light and heavy attacks that can be used without any weapon skill points. Using that weapon in combat builds weapon XP and levels up your weapon skill, allowing you to customise how the weapon works. Each weapon has two distinct skill trees, but you are allowed to use your points to unlock any combination of perks from either side. Within these skill perks are; passive skills, main skills, upgrade skills, and ultimate skills. You do have to unlock skills in some order; the lesser skills are at the top, and the ultimates are at the bottom. You must unlock each layer from top to bottom, in order, to access the lowest ones.
The sheer options that an open-ended system like this gives makes build-crafting its own skill. Finding ideal combinations of perks for specific tasks or content becomes a game in itself.
During live combat, in New World it is imperative that you are constantly moving around and observing the entire combat area. Additionally, you must keep a very keen eye out for taunt icons to ensure that attacks are landing after aggro has been established instead of pulling aggro before the tank can reach them. It is overall harder to align attacks properly, to position yourself correctly, and ultimately optimise combat. This makes it all the more rewarding to be good.
AION 2 Combat
The combat in AION 2 interestingly has both options; action combat or tab targeting. This is a great design choice to optimise the player base, attracting both WoW, hardcore tab-target fans as well as the normal people. This is good for the game overall, but not good for those of us who don’t particularly want to talk to the tab-target purists.
In combat, we have only really experienced the action combat, “AION 2 mode”, except for the five minutes I tried “AION 1 mode” at a guide’s advice. Not ideal.
From the limited experience I have, it feels that AION 2’s combat focuses on building an ideal “deck”, with skills and skill stacks, instead of the live fighting focus. There are so many automation options for combat, from the skill stacks to macros to auto-tracking targets, the game can do a lot for you. This is a double-edged blade; it both devalues live-action/timing-based combat and increases accessibility for people who can’t keep up with it or have physical issues operating the full range of a keyboard.
Combat Comparison
While I greatly prefer the New World’s combat overall, I can see the potential for AION 2 too. The more that we play, the more possibilities seem to unlock, and finally understanding mechanics will be a gamechanger. Still, for now, I vote New World.
Point to New World
Gathering & Crafting
An often overlooked, yet super important aspect of open-world games; the gathering and crafting. Gathering is more reliant on the open world, while crafting fuels the player markets that make up MMOs. Having both systems work well is something that really makes the world feel alive.
| New World | AION 2 | ||
| Pros | Cons | Pros | Cons |
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New World Gathering & Crafting
Both the gathering and crafting systems in New World are great. Starting with gathering, the player is able to interact with and collect an overwhelming majority of what makes up the world of Aeternum. This creates such an immersive experience, truly being able to interact with the world that you live in and explore.
This, of course, leads to the range of gatherable items being extremely vast. You can collect water, trees, rocks, flowers, or mushrooms; and they all give different and unique items. New World does an incredible job of not only allowing the player to collect many different models of resources but also making them loot actually different items.
Now, one might assume that this would increase the complexity of crafting; there’s so many items, are they all useful? Well, yes and no. Everything is used for something, it just depends on whether the things they make can be considered useful themselves.
New World also has specifically separated out their refining of raw materials into their own skills and workstations. This is where the bonus system comes into play most heavily; when refining a large number of items, there is a percent chance to craft extras. This can result in creating up to three times the number of initial crafts. This system is so rewarding, with literally no negative side-effects.
Crafting in New World is incredibly complex and has also changed a lot over the years. The primary crafting types being gear-related (weaponsmithing, armourcrafting, jewelcrafting, arcana), and utility related (arcana and cooking). Gear crafting is the more sought after by crafters – wanting to be valuable to the economy through trade skills. This ultimately meant that it got reworked a bunch of times attempting to master the balance of powerful crafting and crafting difficulty. On the other hand, utility (potion and food) crafting has stayed almost the same since the start.
I’m not the crafter in this establishment, so I can’t go too in-depth on either the New World or AION 2 crafting systems, but from what I do know, the much larger number of options is a good and engaging thing for New World’s crafting.
AION 2 Gathering & Crafting
Gathering and crafting in AION 2 also gets better and better the more we play. It seemed like a negligible part of the game, especially when comparing the scope to New World’s. However, the more I notice it, the more I participate, and the more I craft, the better it feels.
When gathering, you get three different harvesting attempts per node; if you’re lucky, that can also double with Plentiful Harvest! There is a relatively simple skill tree for harvesting, one that has three primary skills: Proficient Handling, Delicate Touch, and Lady Luck. Then, there are sub-skills that are per resource type. For each type, you can upgrade – Seeker, Plentiful Harvest, and Appraiser. These must be unlocked in this order; first unlocking the ability to track the resource nodes, then the ability to increase the harvest, and finally a better chance for lucky harvests.
Quite honestly, crafting is a longer-term goal than I’ve been able to achieve so far in AION 2. Having done some low–level arcana crafting for health & wind potions, I do find the system workable, if not particularly engaging. As for the gear crafting, I am glad to hear that it can create the most powerful gear in the game. I am, however, quite disappointed with the leather situation. It is needed for lots of gear crafting, and it drops so, so rarely. From what I’ve heard, and gathered myself, crafting top-tier gear is quite the grind in itself. Having to get lucky rolling the highest tier of each rarity to be able to get to the next is very demanding. That means that you need four perfect rolls in a row to get a golden craft.
Gathering & Crafting Comparison
Between these two systems, I have to say that I much prefer the immersive experience that New World offers. Being able to collect the majority of your environment for practical use really helps you feel like you effect the world itself. AION 2’s gatherables feel out of place and obvious in the world, not like they belong there and I am harvesting a natural resource. New World wins gathering. For crafting, New World has had a long, rocky history with it, but overall, the range of available crafts makes it a win for me.
Point to New World
Monetisation
This is a hot topic – lots of people seem to be arguing that AION 2 is all pay to win and that the ads are overwhelming. We New Worldians also remember how New World was critiqued for not using a subscription model. So, what’s up with that?
New World Monetisation
The monetisation model that New World went with was standard for most games; a flat price. Players spent around $60 to get access to their full game… up until the Rise of the Angry Earth. This “expansion” was arguably one of the worst decisions that AGS ever made about New World, forcing players to pay real life cash to access a part of the map that had previously been accessible to everyone. And that’s not to say that they couldn’t create fantastic new lands; they had already released the Brimstone Sands update previously, for free. This gave players a vast new space to explore, new weapons, and new mechanics. The RotAE expansion was the beginning of the end, losing New World thousands of players, and, more importantly, player trust.
AION 2 Monetisation
AION 2 uses the much more MMORPG-traditional model of a subscription; however, players can still choose to play on a free-to-play account and experience 99% of the gameplay available. The complaints of people saying that the game is pay-to-win and ad-heavy seem completely wrong from my short experience playing it.
Subscriptions give some QoL features, like accessing storage from anywhere, but this is barely a deal, let alone a big deal, at all. The main thing that I feel is missing, that subscribers get is the player marketplace. There is a whole player economy that free accounts do not get to access, which, understandably, can be a bit of a turn-off. However, it is not particularly over-powered. There are no exclusive items that make you way better at the game on there; just a short cut to some gear you can grind yourself.
As for the ads claim, there are many things that feel like they could be perceived as ads, but I personally disagree. The only full-on ad that I see is the cash shop’s look book that pops up once a day. This isn’t even advertising the subscription model, just the skins available in the store. Other things that could “look like” ads include the daily rewards pop-ups and the daeva pass rewards. But both of these are actually just offering free stuff to players (although the daeva pass premium can be purchased).
Monetisation Comparison
Both games have different monetisation models, and both games are criticized heavily for it. How can they win? Do people just want everything for free? Do people not believe that the developers of games that they love deserve to be paid for their work? Neither monetisation model bothers me. If the game itself is enjoyable, then it should be paid for.
Things that AION 2 is missing
So, what does New World have that AION 2 doesn’t even have anything to compare to?
Firstly, let’s talk about the other half-focus of this website; housing. New World has some of the most incredible housing and decorating I’ve seen in a modern game. AION 2 has a personal space that does technically get decorated; the pantheon. This space, however, is not customisable except for the paintings and statues that are equipped. That is not a real home. And quite honestly, this is probably the number one thing I will miss from New World.
Bonus point to New World
Things that New World is Missing
This category was not part of the original plan, but after some brief brainstorming between the team, we ultimately did find some things that AION 2 has that are not comparable to New World. The main, biggest thing being the Shugo Festival minigames. These minigames are not only fun on their own, but they also use existing game functions that are important to regular gameplay. This includes training you for jumping over boss attacks, gliding into wind streams, mount navigation, combat, puzzles, and looting mechanics. The final thing that AION 2 does objectively better to New World is flying. There will be debate over whether it’s even relevant to New World traversal, but flying is objectively helpful for world navigation. Of course, we barely touched on the fact that AION 2 released with both swimming and flying, as well as having harvesting and combat available in both of these states too!
The Winner is…
| New World | AION 2 |
| 4 points | 3 points |
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The race was very close, but ultimately … New World wins! With a close score of three-to-three points throughout the bulk of the article, New World barely pulls through with it’s housing bonus point. But what does that mean? We don’t want to play AION 2? Well, no. Unfortunately, even though we prefer many of New World’s features, it is closing down in three months, so we will be unable to continue playing even if we wanted to.
This close race actually really showcases just how good AION 2 is; they fulfill many of the same needs that we have in a game (except the housing). The gameplay has been incredibly fun, and AION 2 will definitely be on our short-list of MMORPGs to move to after the shutdown.
The AI
To start off, I would like to state my personal stance on generative AI; it is bad. The primary negative side effects can be divided into environmental and economical. These negative effects would not be nearly as bad if AI wasn’t being pushed on such a large scale right now.
Why is AI Bad?
Environmentally, the generative AI systems that people have begun relying on consume large amounts of energy (which is being sourced through fossil fuels), water (for server cooling, threatening local ecosystems), and create large amounts of electronic waste.
Economically, generative AI is contributing to higher rates of unemployment, reductions in wages, and further polarised income inequality. All without having statistical data saying that it improves work output.
Okay, that seemed boring right? This piece is not meant to be about the impacts that generative AI is having on the world, but let’s keep this in mind when discussing the use of it for such a large-scale game.
What about AION 2?
Throughout my research for this topic, pletny of sources did not differentiate between generative AI and older types of AI systems (like Deep Learning or Symbolic AI). Traditional AI poses significantly less risks (and has been around since the 50s) and is also extremely common within gaming – everyone has heard the NPCs or enemies being called AI; because they are.
Within the gaming industry, and most other industries, there has been a large push from higher-up roles, such as investors, to “get with the times” and implement generative AI workflows into projects.
In the case that NCSoft are using traditional AI models to streamline content creation, that is fine (and expected). In the case that NCSoft are using large-scale generative AI models, that is less fine. While the ultimate goal would be to have a fully handcrafted game, with the current climate there are some big choices that need to be made about what you believe is an okay practice, and what is not.
All tools were once new and were fought back against, this is true. But not all tools were introduced to such a fragile time in society, politics, and world health/climate change. It is important to understand that arguments can be valid, based on previous human experience, and still not applicable in this specific situation.
U4N, a game trading marketplace website, hosts an article regarding AION 2 and the AI within it. To be honest, it is unclear whether this was authored by an actual human, or AI again. Using fully generated visuals, as the article does, builds distrust that the source content was written by humans or researched properly.
The article introduces Valcro, the proprietary AI system that NCSoft owns. A proprietary AI system does not necessarily have to be generative, just privately owned. Some uses of this AI are then outlined; character creation, worldbuilding, NPC realism, asset creation, testing, and debugging. Some of these tasks are more typical of a traditional AI, such as testing and debugging, while some are almost strictly generative, like texturing, modelling, and animating assets. There are also grey areas – the character creation discussed could easily be done using traditional AI systems, but the “NPC realism” is said to be generated.
It is also claimed that AI is used in localisation and translation, creating more interactive NPCs and a more dynamic world.
Most of these applications are not good or even necessary, however, it is also hard to believe that some of these claims are even true. While playing the game, NPCs aren’t particularly realistic. U4N claims that one of Velcro AI’s “standout features” is its ability to bring NPCs to life. They claim that it “generates more natural and detailed facial animations, lip-syncing, and body movements”. In the actual game, NPCs do not have particularly detailed lip syncs or body movements. If the AI is attempting to do this, it is bad at it!
There have been many curious and cautious AI-conscious users who have been participating in various Steam discussions regarding the topic. Many of these have countless troll responses, and I barely continued looking through them, but I am glad that I did.
Thankfully, a developer at NCSoft, Fedal, answered some of the peoples’ burning questions about generative AI usage. While they confirm that AI is used to generate placeholder assets, they also claim that “99.9% of the art in game is made by humans” and that an “incredibly talented team with hundreds of artists” are the ones who “painstakingly create the characters, environments, animations, and visual identity” of the game.
This directly confirms that, while AI is used, there are many, many human artists also being paid for their skills. That is what I would like to support.
Now, this is all fine and dandy, but as much as this would be perfect, I must take it with a grain of salt. Almost all of the advertisement art visually looks generated, and the in-game voice lines are hard to believe as not.
Looking at the evidence, I do believe that a majority of the art is created by humans and that many humans are getting paid for their skills. I would love to see more credible statements about generative AI uses in other areas of development; system architecture, gameplay features, audio creation, and writing specifically.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, avoiding 100% of AI generated entertainment content will continue to get harder every day, so it is important to choose where you stand, what specific values you have, and who to support. I think that supporting a game development studio that pays wages of hundreds of artists is a good thing. I also think that the knowledge of the game using generative AI does subconsciously affect how I feel about spending “frivolous” money on the game; I am much less likely to outright purchase cash shop currency. This does not mean that I never will, but it makes it a much more conscious thought.
Is AION 2 playable for someone who disagrees with generative AI usage? Yes. Of course, it’s important to keep an eye out for new information about the topic, but as it stands currently, the gameplay is so well thought out and the AI is so minute (once you mute the audio), that it’s not difficult to enjoy playing.
Sources
Character Creation | Aion 2 Wiki
Aion 2 Outfits and Cosmetic System: 👗 Complete Guide to the Closet ⚡
Aion 2 vs Aion 1 Control mode: Which one should you use?
Understanding the Combat System of Aion 2
AI related
Aion 2 Game AI: Enhancing Gameplay and Development – U4N
AI-Heavy MMO Aion 2 Officially Becomes One Of 2026’s Most-Played Games
To what extent does Aion 2 utilize AI? :: AION 2 General Discussion
No, New World is not using AI voices in Nighthaven, Amazon confirms | Massively Overpowered
