Aion

Aion is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by NCSoft and launched in South Korea in November 2008, with Western releases following in September 2009. Set in the fantasy world of Atreia, players choose between two opposing factions — the Elyos and the Asmodians — and engage in a hybrid PvP/PvE system the developers called PvPvE, which involves fighting both the enemy faction and NPC Balaur forces simultaneously across contested regions. The game features six base classes branching into twelve specializations, an extensive crafting system across seven professions, aerial combat as a core mechanic, and large-scale fortress siege battles supporting up to 192 participants.

Aion uses CryEngine as its underlying technology and communicates over TCP. The Western version went free-to-play in 2012. NCSoft dropped the GameGuard anti-cheat from the Western launch in 2009 due to widespread compatibility complaints, and the EU Gameforge version has operated without prominent client-side anti-cheat since then. A classic server revival, Aion Classic, launched in North America and Europe in 2021–2023 and remains active as of 2026, though the original retail servers have extremely low player populations. The original Western retail servers are effectively sunset, with Aion Classic being the actively maintained product in those regions.