The Story of AION, Explained
Whether you're jumping into AION 2 at launch or returning to the world after years away, the story of AION is worth knowing - it's what gives the endless faction war its weight. Here's the whole arc, from the creation of the world to the setup for AION 2, in plain language.
🌍 The World: Atreia and the god Aion
The setting is Atreia, a world created by an ageless deity known as Aion. In the lore, Aion took the form of a colossal tower presiding over the world's creation, shaping every mountain, valley, and continent like a master craftsman building a timepiece.
To hold the life-giving energy of the world, Aion created the Tower of Eternity - the source of Aether, the magical essence that flows through all of Atreia and powers its life and magic. Before the disaster to come, Atreia was a vibrant paradise: lush lands, stable energy, and skies open enough that one could fly almost anywhere.
🐉 The First Betrayal: the Drakan become the Balaur
Aion's earliest creations were the Drakan - a powerful dragon race intended to rule over and protect Atreia and its humans. But their own will led them astray. Under a Drakan who gained immense power and ascended - Fregion - they abandoned Aion and the name he gave them, rebranded themselves the Balaur, and declared war on the rest of the world, seeking absolute power over all of Atreia.
To defend humanity from the Balaur onslaught, Aion created the Twelve Empyrean Lords - mighty beings gifted with command over Aether. Humans who connected to that Aether grew far beyond mortal limits, giving rise to the Daevas: winged, ascended champions who could fight the dragons on equal footing.
💥 The Cataclysm: the world breaks in two
After a long and brutal war, a fragile peace treaty with the Balaur was attempted - and it failed catastrophically. The result was the Cataclysm: the Tower of Eternity was shattered, and the world of Atreia itself was torn into two halves.
Both sides blame the other for the treaty's collapse - and that disagreement is the seed of everything that follows. The ancient Atreians were split along with their world into two peoples, each stranded on a different hemisphere of the broken planet.
☀️ The Elyos and 🌑 the Asmodians
The Elyos inhabit Elysea, the sunlit lower half of Atreia. Bathed in light and growth, they developed vibrant, radiant appearances - some even bearing feathered, angel-like wings.
The Asmodians were left in the darker, harsher upper half, their capital the fortress-city of Pandaemonium. Centuries in shadow reshaped them into a more fearsome form - pale skin, glowing eyes adapted to darkness, and a more demonic silhouette. They're often simply called "Demons" by their rivals, but they're no less human at their core.
The split extended even to the surviving Empyrean Lords: the Elyos follow the Seraphim Lords, the Asmodians the Shedim Lords. Two of the original twelve were lost, and the remaining ten divided along the same line that split the world.
The result is a three-way war: Elyos and Asmodians fight each other for the fractured remains of the world and both must contend with the ever-present Balaur. That contested space between the two halves - the Abyss - is where much of the endgame conflict plays out.
🔮 Where AION 2 picks up
According to NCSoft, AION 2 takes place roughly two centuries after the original, following the collapse of the Tower of Eternity. It's a continuation, not a reboot: the Daevas are gradually losing their power, the faction war between Elyos and Asmodians still burns, and the Balaur still threaten the survivors. The world you fight in has moved on - but the ancient wounds haven't healed.
📚 Keep going
- Elyos vs Asmodian - the two factions compared
- The Balaur & the Dragon Lords
- The Daevas & Ascension
- Ready to play? Start with the AION 2 Player's Guide or pick a class on the Classes page.