AION 2 didn't just crack the Steam charts on early access day—it body-slammed them. NC's MMORPG hit a peak of 171,530 concurrent players on Steam alone during its September 30 Founder's Pack window, while claiming the #1 global Top Sellers spot and topping sales in 12 countries including the US, France, Germany, Spain, and Brazil. That's with a paid gate ($24.99 minimum) five days before the free-to-play drop on October 5, and Steam numbers exclude the PURPLE launcher crowd.

The launch had hiccups—delayed server opens, queues, and some negative early reviews over server capacity and character slot limits—but player counts held above 100K the next day. Reviews climbed from mixed territory (around 46-52% positive early on) to Mostly Positive at 73% across roughly 2,400+ total reviews, with praise for Unreal Engine 5 visuals, character creator depth, and flight combat. Pre-launch wishlist hype cleared 1.3 million, and NC ran a two-week "War For Atreia" creator event with 60 streamers across regions.

This paid early access surge already doubled the prior Launch Scale Test peak of ~74K, signaling serious demand ahead of the full October 5 global release across NA, SA, EU, and JP servers in eight languages. The real test comes when the paywall drops.