AION 2 Servers Explained: Regions, Transfers and Playing With Friends

To play AION 2 with friends you need the same region, the same faction and the same server, because every server holds only one faction and server names repeat from region to region. If you already picked different servers, one free transfer per account, between servers of the same faction and region, opens on 14 October 2026 for Early Access servers and on 21 October for launch servers, and dungeons are cross-server in the meantime.

This guide is built on NC's own notices on the game's Steam page and official site, the launch FAQ and the 7 October patch notes, all checked on 7 October 2026 after that day's maintenance, with the server list rechecked on 9 October and the transfer rules checked against NC's 9 October transfer notices on 13 October 2026. We have not played the game; where a point comes only from players on Reddit, we say so.

How do AION 2 servers work?

When you start the game you choose a region, then a faction (Elyos or Asmodian), then a server in that region, in that order, according to NC's server notice of 4 October. Each server houses a single faction. That is the first thing to agree on with friends: an Elyos and an Asmodian can never share a home server.

The two factions still meet. NC pairs every Elyos server with one Asmodian server, and when you enter the Abyss, Spacetime Rifts or another cross-faction mode, the enemies you meet come from your paired server. NC says the pairings are for a limited time and will be updated periodically to keep the factions balanced, so today's rival server is not permanent.

Which regions and servers are there?

NC's list has five regions: Europe, NA East, NA West, Latin America and Asia. Its launch FAQ describes the server locations as North America, South America, Europe and Japan; there is no separate Oceania region. Each region has two groups of servers: the Advanced Access servers opened for Founder's Pack owners on 30 September, and the launch servers added for the free-to-play release on 5 October.

The table counts pairs as NC lists them; NC says the list will keep changing. Its European list shows four pairs added after the notice first went up, at times between 17:13 and 21:50 CEST, and the Asia notice shows two more pairs added on the evening of 5 October, Japan time. On 8 October NC opened one more European pair, Nathara (Elyos) and Tassin (Asmodian), at 18:00 CEST, and encouraged players to join new servers as they open.

How do I play with friends on different servers?

Your home server is where you quest in the open world, so for that you need the same server. For instanced content you do not: NC's 30 September notice says all instanced content, including dungeons, is available cross-server, and repeated it in the transfer notice. In practice that means a group split across two servers of the same region can still run dungeons together; it cannot share the same open world.

Steam and PURPLE (NC's own launcher) make no difference. The FAQ says players from both share the same servers and get the same content. You only need to link the two accounts if you want the same character on both platforms; progress from the Korean or Taiwanese versions does not carry over.

Can I transfer servers in AION 2?

Yes, from 14 October 2026, and it is free. NC's server transfer notice of 9 October prices both the base cost and the cost per character at 0 Quna. Transfers only work between servers of the same faction and the same region, so an Elyos character cannot move to an Asmodian server, and a European character cannot move to NA East.

Update, 13 October 2026: NC published the full rules on 9 October, and the window is short. Transfers run for two weeks, split by server type:

Each account gets one transfer for the whole period, from one server to one other server, but it can take any number of characters with it. The only charge is for room: if the destination server has fewer free character slots than you are bringing, each extra slot costs 1,000 Quna.

The purchase button only activates when the character is level 10 or higher, standing in a village (not in the Abyss, a Spacetime Rift or a dungeon), outside any Legion with no pending Legion application, and without active Duty missions. Nothing can be left unclaimed: no Market listings or uncollected proceeds, no items in Shop Storage (Founder's Pack included) and no mail. Because every character must leave its Legion first, there is no way to move a guild as a group. NC's transfer Q&A also warns that a transfer can be refused when either server has reached its transfer cap.

Purchases are limited to set hours each day. In Europe the windows are 12:00 to 16:00 and 18:00 to 22:00 CEST; in NA East, NA West and South America they are 09:00 to 13:00 and 15:00 to 19:00 PDT (18:00 to 22:00 and 00:00 to 04:00 CEST); in Asia they are 05:00 to 09:00 and 11:00 to 15:00 CEST.

What moves with you: Kina in the character's Cube inventory and Character Storage (but not Server Storage), Quna and Mileage, an active membership and your Daeva Pass progress. Shop pets and skins transfer too, with reward tickets for duplicates. Your character name is reset to a temporary one and you choose a new name at first login; if your old name is already taken on the destination server, you cannot keep it.

Should I pick an Early Access server or a launch server?

It mostly depends on where your friends are, because of the transfer restriction above. Founder's Pack players who started on 30 September had about five days' head start on the Advanced Access servers. On r/Aion2 the most-discussed server threads of launch weekend were about exactly this choice, with one asking whether early players would stay or restart on a fresh server drawing 62 comments; there was no consensus.

If you are starting now with friends who have not played, a launch server keeps every option open: you all start together, and the launch-server transfer week, 21 to 28 October, lets you move once between launch servers of your faction if you outgrow your pick.

What carries over between servers and characters?

Less than you might expect. NC changed the Founder's Pack rules after early access feedback: the cosmetics, titles and pets in the packs now work on every character on every server, and the 7 October patch added a free Founder's Pack shop that all characters on all servers can use to claim items they do not yet own. If you are planning alts, our guide to the eight AION 2 classes explains what each one does in a group.

The membership is the one to watch. NC lists the 30-day membership among the items that keep their current rules, and players on r/Aion2 report that a claimed membership only applies on the server where it was claimed (38 upvotes, 38 comments on 2 October). NC's 9 October transfer notice offers one way round it: an active membership moves with a transferred character and is combined with any membership on the destination server. If you plan to play on two servers at once, budget for two.

Why are some servers queued or closed to new characters?

Demand. Steam's chart listed AION 2 fifth on Steam with 169,735 people in game at about 11:10 UTC on 7 October, with a peak of 383,176 on the same chart, and NC thanked players for passing 400,000 active users on launch day. Massively Overpowered noted on 2 October that NC had already opened extra servers more than once during early access.

NC's advice to anyone stuck in a queue is to create the character on a recommended server instead. Players also report a faction imbalance: one r/Aion2 post on the evening of 6 October counted every Elyos server green but most Asmodian servers busy. That is a single snapshot, not NC data, but it suggests Elyos servers are the quicker way in for now.

What we don't know yet

• Whether NC will offer server transfers again after 28 October, and at what price.
• How often server pairings will change, and how NC decides them.
• Whether NC plans to merge servers if populations drop; its notices do not mention merges.

For the launch numbers and the Founder's Pack prices, see our AION 2 early access and launch report; everything else we publish on the game is collected on the AION 2 hub.