AION 2 holds a launch-eve broadcast before 5 October
NC opens AION 2's Japanese service on 5 October and is running a launch-eve stream on 4 October, built around player characters, a field tour and a prize hashtag.
AION 2 leaves early access and opens its Japanese service on 5 October, and NC Corporation is filling the night before with a four-hour broadcast aimed at players who are about to start.
The night before launch
The launch-eve programme, billed in Japan as AION2 LIVE, goes out on the game's official YouTube channel on 4 October from 20:00 JST. Matsuzawa Neki returns as the main MC, joined by Wakasa Yuri and Sithle, who appear in Elyos and Asmodian cosplay. The Japanese operations team, including director Seiichi Kasamatsu, is also on the running order.
A character contest and a field tour
Much of the show is given to what players have already made. A style shop contest pulls characters from the in-game style shop and has the hosts and the operations team pick the best of them, with prizes handed out on air. The two assistants then take a field tour of the Elyos and Asmodian territories, stopping at the traces of the gods, the sealed dungeons and the frontline outposts that new players tend to walk past. Party content gets an outing too, with a look at the casual Shugo Festa and a run into the Temple of Flame dungeon alongside players already in early access.
A hashtag, a stunt and a launch
NC is also closing out a publicity stunt from the previous stream: the no-wing flight challenge, flown on a rope, finally reveals whether it worked. During the broadcast the company runs a hashtag campaign with prizes from sponsor companies for posts tagged with the Japanese phrase meaning AION 2 opens on 5 October. The stream is expected to carry the live campaigns and the post-launch schedule as well.
The game
AION 2 is a free-to-play follow-up to Aion, built around eight classes, flight as a way of moving through the world rather than a shortcut, action combat, and a character creator with detailed dye options. Alongside the story it offers solo content, dungeons for groups, timed mini-games and pets.
Our opinion
A launch-eve stream is the last cheap moment a live-service game has, so NC is spending it on players who are already logged in rather than on selling the game to strangers. The style shop contest is the giveaway. Rather than show off the world the developers built, the broadcast hands the screen to characters that players made, which turns a marketing event into something closer to a graduation ceremony for early access. Pairing that with a tour of dungeons and outposts that only makes sense if you have a character is a deliberate choice: this stream is for the converted, and the conversion window closed weeks ago. The rope-flight stunt is the one piece aimed outward, and it will be judged the way all stunt marketing is, on whether the clip travels. For everyone else the actual news is simply the date, and 5 October is now a fixed point.