Verdict: Aion 2 is NC’s action MMORPG sequel: Elyos against Asmodians again, free flight, realm-versus-realm PvP, and a very deep character editor. It launched in Korea and Taiwan in November 2025 and worldwide on Steam and PURPLE on 5 October 2026, published in the West by NC itself (NC America), not by Amazon or Gameforge. NC said before launch that it would not change the game for the global market, and the ESRB’s description of the global build still lists “lingerie-like costumes”, cleavage, partly exposed buttocks and lingering camera angles. We found no consultancy, no LGBTQ+ content, no Pride items, no pronoun option and no Western cover-up. The launch backlash was about monetisation and AI art, not politics.

Woke Score: 0/100. No documented DEI consultancy, queer writing, girlboss script, Western censorship or regional content cut. NC has a corporate D&I policy, but nothing shows it changed this game.

Woke Score graphic

This is the standing page for Aion 2 (NC, Korea and Taiwan 19 November 2025; global Early Access 30 September 2026 and free-to-play launch 5 October 2026 on Steam and PURPLE, with servers for North America, South America, Europe and Japan). The 2008 original has its own page: Aion. New evidence gets merged here; the URL stays fixed.

How the score breaks down

Scored against our How we score rules:

• Global build versus the Korean original: 0. At gamescom NC told VGTimes: “The most important thing for us is to stay true to the Aion franchise. We don’t want to make any changes to the game to adapt it for the global market. The changes that will be made in the global version of the game, we will also make in the Korean version.” (Rodion Ilin, VGTimes, 30 August 2026.) Asked whether Korean and Taiwanese costumes would be censored, NC Global’s Merv Lee Kwai said no censorship is planned, and that costumes will come out in rotation so missed items return to the shop later (interview by Wakayashi, summarised by mmorpg-aion2.ru, 27 September 2026). Russian outlets reported the same pledge in June under the headline “AION 2 won’t change costume designs for global, there will be no censorship” (GoHa.Ru; Beltion Game). The shipped build backs this up. The ESRB summary for the global PC version reads: “Some female characters are designed with revealing outfits (e.g., a variety of lingerie-like costumes; deep cleavage, partially exposed buttocks); camera angles sometimes linger on characters’ chests and/or sit low, highlighting characters’ buttocks” (ESRB, rating 41534). The ratings differ (Korea’s 청소년이용불가, adults only; ESRB T and PEGI 16 in the West), but we found no source that any costume or scene was cut to get them.
• Character creator: 0. Two body frames, one classically male and one classically female, with all eight global classes open to both (Fextralife wiki, updated 9 January 2026, before the global launch). NC says there are “more than 200 customization options”, and you can make a character “quite tall or as small as a tween” (Fextralife). The picker shows two silhouettes rather than the words “male” and “female”, which a KotakuInAction thread complained about (18 September 2026). It doesn’t score. It’s an icon in an editor that uses icons and previews throughout, it’s not a “Body Type 1/2” label, and NC’s own English notices call it gender: “if the character’s gender is changed, the skin corresponding to the new gender will be applied” (NC, “New Skin Items Info”, 30 September 2026). There’s no pronoun option.
• Korean launch-week edits: 0. A Ruliweb user reported on 16 November 2025 that pre-launch customisation showed characters in long johns instead of underwear, and commenters said it was back within about an hour. That’s a single community post, so it’s unverified and scores nothing. On 26 November 2025 NC deleted Style Shop presets that looked like NMIXX’s Sullyoon and Stray Kids’ Felix (Pinpoint News; Dealsite via Nate, 27 November 2025). That was about real people’s likeness, not a cover-up of the game’s own designs.
• LGBTQ+ content and Pride items: 0. We found no same-sex romance, queer character, Pride event or identity-flag item in the Korean, Taiwanese or global versions. A two-character marriage feature with a shared warehouse was reported for the Korean and Taiwanese build in August 2026 (YouTube, “AION 2 WEEKLY NEWS: Changes in Global Release, Marriage System and Gamescom 2026”). We found nothing on whether same-sex pairs can use it, and nothing presenting it as representation.
• Steam tags and launch backlash (rule H): 0. Checked on 6 October 2026, the top player-voted tags are Free to Play (136), MMORPG (128), Massively Multiplayer (119), Adventure (113), Open World (109), RPG (100), Character Customization (98), Action, Fantasy and PvP (80 each), PvE (79) and Artificial Intelligence (66). There’s no LGBTQ+ tag. Reviews stood at 66% positive of 5,556 in English. The launch complaints were monetisation and AI: TheGamer quotes reviewers calling it “a game designed and built around its Monetization” and notes Steam’s AI disclosure that “Arcana card designs and some icons use AI-generated assets” (Sam Woods, 6 October 2026). AI-made assets aren’t a DEI signal.
• Women (rule E): 0. The women are the glamorous, anime-adjacent Korean MMO kind, and the ESRB text above is the proof. That’s the traditional, feminine kind of strong woman our rules treat as neutral. Both factions’ prologues open with an NPC rescuing the player: Hithanya for the Elyos (quest journal, Wikily) and Nemon for the Asmodians (김영찬, Gametoc, 4 March 2026). A KotakuInAction commenter said both rescuers are women and called the Elyos one “from diversity”. That’s one opinion about characters who are the same in the Korean original. No established character was changed, and being rescued by a woman isn’t girlboss writing.
• Male dialogue (rule F): 0. We found no quoted male line in HR or therapy register. Nothing to score.
• Consultancy (rule A): not found. We found no credit, LinkedIn post or report of Sweet Baby Inc., Hit Detection or any sensitivity, diversity or culturalisation firm on Aion 2. It isn’t on the “Sweet Baby Inc detected” Steam curator’s list. The game’s Western press was handled by a PR agency (Outrageous PR, per RPGamer’s 13 June 2026 interview), which is marketing, not narrative consulting. A full credit list for the global build wasn’t available to check, so a buried name isn’t impossible.
• Track record (rule B): not applied. NC does have published D&I material. A 6 April 2021 NC post, “DEI: Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion to Go ‘Further Together’”, sets out a workplace culture beyond “race, gender, and skin color”, and the ESG Playbook 2021 (published 27 June 2022) calls D&I “NC’s sustainability management strategy” and says NC does “culturalization and quality assurance (QA) to embrace cultural diversity in the content”. That’s a corporate policy, not a content quota, and nothing we found shows it changed Aion 2: the costumes are intact worldwide, and NC said it wouldn’t adapt the game for the West. We treat it the way we treated Amazon’s inclusion playbook on 007 First Light: listed, not scored. Amazon Games doesn’t publish Aion 2, so the “Body Type A/B” labels on its Western release of NC’s Throne and Liberty (Steam community threads) don’t carry over. A KotakuInAction commenter claimed the Korean Throne and Liberty uses the same labels; we couldn’t confirm that either way, so it isn’t charged to NC. Gameforge publishes the original Aion in Europe but has no role in Aion 2. On NC America’s previous launch, Blade & Soul NEO, Andrew Long said: “We don’t want to take a costume and dumb it down from the other region” (GameSpace developer interview).
• Press (rule D): 0. NC publicly rejected changing the game for the global market (the VGTimes quote above), which is a documented green flag. It isn’t subtracted, because every other line is zero and a green flag can’t go below zero, and it’s the same evidence as the first line, counted once. The press criticism we found isn’t progressive or feminist: GameMeca’s 2 December 2025 column and The Escapist’s lawyer piece are about presets that look like real people, and Rock Paper Shotgun mocked the “uncanny valley” faces (Oisin Kuhnke, 21 April 2026), which is about quality.

Total: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 0.

Confirmed findings

• Same game worldwide, on NC’s word. “We don’t want to make any changes to the game to adapt it for the global market” (VGTimes). No costume censorship planned (Merv Lee Kwai).
• The global build is still revealing. ESRB: “lingerie-like costumes; deep cleavage, partially exposed buttocks”, with camera angles that linger.
• NC publishes it in the West itself. Not Amazon, not Gameforge.
• No pronoun option. NC’s notices say “gender”.
• No LGBTQ+ Steam tag. The top tags are genre tags, plus Character Customization and Artificial Intelligence.
• The launch backlash was monetisation and AI art. TheGamer, PC Gamer and Steam reviews.

Checked and not confirmed (or ruled out)

Talking point	Finding
The global version censors Korean costumes	Not found. NC said no, and the ESRB description lists lingerie-like costumes. Some Korean items aren’t in the global shop yet because they rotate in.
“Body type” instead of gender	Partly true, not scored. The picker uses two silhouettes, not the words “male” and “female”. NC calls it gender in its notices. No “Body Type 1/2” label, no pronouns.
Underwear replaced with long johns	Unverified. One Ruliweb post (16 November 2025), with commenters saying it was reversed within about an hour.
Idol-lookalike presets were removed for woke reasons	No. Removed on 26 November 2025 over real-person likeness.
The Elyos prologue rescuer is a diversity insert	Not shown. One KotakuInAction comment; same character in the Korean original; no established character was changed.
Same-sex marriage	Unknown. A Korean and Taiwanese marriage feature was reported in August 2026; we found no rule on same-sex pairs.
Pride event or identity flags	Not found.
Sweet Baby Inc. or a sensitivity reader	Not found in any source we could read.
Amazon or Gameforge publishes Aion 2 in the West	No. NC (NC America) publishes it.

Cleanest version and regional notes

On the evidence so far, the global build (Steam or PURPLE) and the Korean and Taiwanese builds are the same game with the same outfits, and NC says changes go to both. The Korean version is the reference and has the most content, including the Brawler class and costumes that haven’t rotated into the global shop yet. For a Western player, the global build is the clean one. Any content that’s live only in Korea and Taiwan, such as the reported marriage feature, hasn’t been released in the West yet, so this page can’t score how the global version will handle it.

DEI Detector scorecard

Signal	Present?
Inclusion / sensitivity consultancy (rule A)	Not found
Publisher or studio track record (rule B)	Not applied (NC’s D&I policy is listed; no effect on this game shown)
Woke changes to established characters (rule C)	Not found
Progressive-press attack (rule D)	Not found; NC’s public no-changes pledge is a green flag, not subtracted (floor 0)
Girlboss writing (rule E)	Not found
Male dialogue out of character (rule F)	Not found
Built-in Pride or identity flag set (rule G)	Not found
#1 LGBTQ+ Steam tag plus backlash (rule H)	Not found (no LGBTQ+ tag; backlash was monetisation and AI)
Western costume censorship	Not found
Pronoun option	Not found

Open to update

This page will be revisited if:

• A credit, LinkedIn post or reliable report shows a diversity, sensitivity or culturalisation firm on Aion 2.
• A Korean costume arrives in the global shop redrawn, covered or missing for content reasons, or a global patch changes outfits.
• The marriage feature reaches the global version, or NC adds Pride items, identity flags or a pronoun option.
• The LGBTQ+ tag shows up in Aion 2’s top Steam tags.

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Sources: Rodion Ilin, “‘The Number One Thing That Was Most Important Is Staying True To The Aion Franchise’: A VGTimes Interview with Aion 2 Creators at gamescom 2026”, VGTimes, 30 August 2026; mmorpg-aion2.ru, “AION 2 Global: большой FAQ по интервью с Мерв Ли Квай” (Wakayashi interview with Merv Lee Kwai), 27 September 2026; GoHa.Ru and Beltion Game, “AION 2 не изменит дизайны костюмов для глобала — никакой цензуры не будет”; ESRB rating summary for AION 2 (rating 41534); Jordan McClain, “Aion 2 Interview” (Seung-Uk Baek, Daniel LaFuente, Merv Lee Kwai), RPGamer, 13 June 2026; NC global launch press release and Inven Global coverage, 5 October 2026; Steam store page for AION 2 (app 3393110; developer and publisher NC), player tags, review count and AI disclosure read on 6 October 2026; Sam Woods, TheGamer, 6 October 2026; PC Gamer on the Korean launch monetisation apology; Fextralife Aion 2 wiki, “Character Creation” (updated 9 January 2026); aion2globalguide.world, character creation page; NC, “[Notice] 9/30 (Wed) New Skin Items Info”, aion2.plaync.com; KotakuInAction thread on the silhouette picker, 18 September 2026 (fan discussion, not scored); Ruliweb community post, 16 November 2025 (unverified); Pinpoint News and Dealsite via Nate on the idol-lookalike presets, November 2025; 류종화, GameMeca, 2 December 2025; The Escapist on the lifelike creator and legal risk; Oisin Kuhnke, Rock Paper Shotgun, 21 April 2026; Wikily quest journal (“The Approaching Dawn”) and 김영찬, Gametoc, Asmodian story feature (4 March 2026), for the prologue rescuers; YouTube, “AION 2 WEEKLY NEWS: Changes in Global Release, Marriage System and Gamescom 2026”; NC, “DEI: Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion to Go ‘Further Together’”, 6 April 2021; NC, “NCSOFT ESG PLAYBOOK 2021” summary, 27 June 2022; Steam community threads and a KotakuInAction thread (19 July 2024) on Throne and Liberty’s Body Type A/B; GameSpace, Blade & Soul NEO developer interview (Andrew Long); the “Sweet Baby Inc detected” Steam curator list. Hero image: NC’s official AION 2 key art from aion2.plaync.com. Lines marked “not found” were searched and not shown.