AION 2 slammed into Steam's charts like a Daeva with maxed flight skills, hitting a fat 171,530 concurrent players on day one of paid Early Access and snagging the global #1 Top Sellers spot across 12 countries. SteamDB tracked the peak while over 100K stuck around the next day on Steam alone—PURPLE launcher numbers not even counted. Then the F2P hammer dropped October 5 with full commercial launch, scheduled maintenance, and the inevitable cooldown: SteamWatch logged a 38.4% drop in just six hours down to around 65K concurrent as servers reset and hype took a breather.

Launch day wasn't all smooth skies. Early Access had queue nightmares, delayed start times, account linking bugs, and in-game purchase hiccups that NC scrambled to patch without downtime. Steam reviews swung from a rough 52% positive snapshot at peak launch chaos to Mostly Positive territory around 75-77% once the dust settled and more players clocked hours. X chatter stayed mostly hype-focused on new servers dropping and fresh starts, with the usual launch server pop-in drama but no full meltdown.

The real test starts now that it's free for everyone. NC opened extra servers and promised transfers later, but maintenance windows and the drop show the classic live service tightrope: big debut numbers don't guarantee they stick around when the bills and boss fights get real. Steam's revenue chart love came from Founder's Packs, not the game itself, so October 5's F2P flood will decide if this sequel flies or just flaps.