Aion
Verdict: Aion is NCSoft’s 2008 Korean MMORPG about winged Daevas, Elyos against Asmodians, with the Balaur as the third side. When NCsoft West brought it over in 2009, it rewrote the English story and added content, but its own producer described the job as “adding versus changing”. The anime-style looks stayed. The character creator was made more permissive for the West (a leg-length slider for “seriously short” characters), not less. We found no consultancy, no LGBTQ+ content, no Pride event, no pronoun option, and no Western outfit or young-looking-character censorship. It’s a 2008 Korean MMO, played as one.
Woke Score: 0/100. No documented DEI consultancy, queer writing, girlboss script, Western cover-up or regional content cut. Every line below scores zero.
Woke Score graphic
This is the standing page for Aion (also sold as Aion: The Tower of Eternity; NCSoft, Korea 11 November 2008, North America 22 September 2009, Europe 25 September 2009). It covers the live game, which Gameforge publishes in Europe (Steam’s “AION MMO”, app 261430), and the Aion Classic servers. The 2025 sequel has its own page: Aion 2. New evidence gets merged here; the URL stays fixed.
How the score breaks down
Scored against our How we score rules:
- The 2009 Western localisation: 0. NCsoft West rewrote the English story text with Western writers (GamesIndustry.biz, interview with Jaeho Lee, 25 September 2009). Producer Brian Knox told Gamasutra it “was adding versus changing”: a new default control scheme, language channels, “more Western faces inside the character creation, but Korea, we’re going to use that as well”, and extra quests and instances (Christian Nutt, Gamasutra / Game Developer, 1 October 2009). The one thing he says they cut was a lore point: “removing the reference, talking about Aion the god and Aion the tower being the same”, because it didn’t land with Western players. That is a clarity edit, not a political one. On the looks, Knox said the opposite of a Western clean-up: “should we still have that option to make the cool looking anime figure in the character creator? Yeah.” Engadget’s 2009 Comic-Con interview also describes the Western changes as language, text and lore, with the same mechanics (24 July 2009).
- Character creator and young-looking characters: 0. Two genders, and the West got a wider range of body shapes. MMORPG.com’s 2009 PAX preview reports that a leg-length slider was added after beta feedback so players can make “seriously short characters” (Carolyn Koh, 9 September 2009). Players did make tiny, child-proportioned characters, and argued about it on forums and blogs (for example The Refined Geek, “Attack of the Aion Midgets”, 27 October 2009). We found no patch or statement in which NCsoft or Gameforge took that option away. There’s no pronoun option.
- Outfit censorship between Korea and the West: 0. We searched for a Western build that covers outfits, lengthens skirts or changes a race to look older and found none. “Lodas” is an Elim NPC and mob in Eltnen (ZAM and the Aion fan wiki), not a playable race. “Lyrean” isn’t an Aion term we could find anywhere. The well-known Western cover-up of a young-looking race is TERA’s Elin, a different game from a different studio (Eurogamer). Aion has only two playable races, Elyos and Asmodians.
- Aion Classic and the coming Aion Reforged (rule C): 0. Aion Classic recreates the early game. The NA and EU Classic differences players complained about were XP rates, drop rates and balance (Gameforge forum, “Why is EU classic so nerfed compared to NA?”), not outfits or writing. Aion Reforged is a new server type that opens on 20 October 2026 (MMOHuts; pre-registration on aiononline.com). It isn’t out yet, so there’s nothing to score.
- LGBTQ+ content and Pride events: 0. We found no Pride event in the NCSoft (NA) or Gameforge (EU) event archives. The 2022 “Rainbow Snake Festival” was a gathering and crafting event with Chromatic Gift bundles (aiononline.com, 6 April – 4 May 2022), not Pride. In-game weddings are player roleplay; NCsoft sold a female bridal gown and male tuxedo in its store (Massively, “Wings Over Atreia: Till log do us part”, MJ Guthrie, 22 August 2011). We found no same-sex romance, queer character or identity-flag item.
- Steam tags (rule H): 0. On “AION MMO” (app 261430), checked on 6 October 2026, the top player-voted tags are Free to Play (410), MMORPG (354), Massively Multiplayer (275), RPG (257), Open World (257), PvP (211), Fantasy (203), Adventure (172), Character Customization (166), Multiplayer (161), PvE (135) and Anime (124). There’s no LGBTQ+ tag anywhere in the list.
- Women (rule E): 0. The art is the anime-influenced Korean MMO look: glamorous female Daevas, high heels, revealing armour. A 2010 personal LiveJournal post called it “the worst case of chain-mail bikini syndrome I’ve ever seen in an MMO” (smurasaki, 2 September 2010). That’s the traditional, feminine kind of strong woman our rules treat as neutral. We found no girlboss writing.
- Male dialogue (rule F): 0. We found no quoted line from a male character in HR or therapy register. Nothing to score.
- Consultancy (rule A): not found. MobyGames lists 608 people on the Windows credits, led by NCsoft Korea’s producers (Taekjin Kim, James Bae, Wonsik Woo). The summary we could read has no diversity, inclusion or sensitivity credit. A direct fetch of the full credit page timed out, so a buried name isn’t impossible; nothing retrieved shows one. The game isn’t in Sweet Baby Inc.’s project list or on the “Sweet Baby Inc detected” Steam curator’s list.
- Track record (rule B): not applied. NCSoft’s published diversity and inclusion material dates from 2021 and 2022 (see the Aion 2 page), more than a decade after this game shipped. We found no Gameforge DEI mandate, censored release or Pride campaign that touched Aion. Amazon Games has never published Aion, so its record doesn’t apply here.
- Press (rule D): 0. We found no progressive or feminist outlet attacking Aion. Kotaku’s 2013 “Thirteen Types of Ridiculous Female Armor In MMORPGs” (Patricia Hernandez, 16 May 2013) is about the genre and doesn’t name Aion in its text. The 2010 LiveJournal “chain-mail bikini” post is one player’s blog, not an outlet, and fan-forum complaints don’t count.
Total: 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 0.
Confirmed findings
- The Western version added rather than cut. Knox: “adding versus changing”. New Western face presets were added and shared back to Korea. Extra quests and instances were added.
- One lore point was played down. The god-and-tower equivalence was removed from the Western text, by Knox’s account, because it didn’t resonate. Not a political edit.
- The anime option was kept on purpose. Knox, on keeping “the cool looking anime figure in the character creator”: “Yeah.”
- Short characters were made easier, not harder. The 2009 leg-length slider allowed “seriously short characters” (MMORPG.com).
- No LGBTQ+ tag on Steam. Top tags on 6 October 2026 are genre tags, plus Anime.
Checked and not confirmed (or ruled out)
| Talking point | Finding |
|---|---|
| The West censored Aion’s outfits | Not found. No source shows a covered or redrawn costume in the NA or EU build. |
| The West changed a young-looking race (the “Lyrean” or “Lodas” claim) | Ruled out. Aion’s playable races are Elyos and Asmodians. Lodas is an Elim NPC and mob. “Lyrean” isn’t an Aion term we could find. The famous case is TERA’s Elin. |
| Short or child-proportioned characters were removed | Not found. The West added a slider that made them easier. |
| Aion runs a Pride event | Not found. Rainbow Snake Festival (2022) is a seasonal gathering and crafting event. |
| Same-sex marriage or queer characters | Not found. Weddings are player roleplay with store outfits. |
| Pronoun option or “body type” labels | Not found. |
| Aion Classic NA or EU was modernised | No. The reported differences are rates and balance. |
| Sweet Baby Inc. or a sensitivity reader | Not in the sources we could read. Full MobyGames page timed out. |
Cleanest version and regional notes
The Korean original is the reference text, and we found no Western build that cuts or covers anything from it. The NA (NCSoft) and EU (Gameforge) live servers are fine to play; their story text is a 2009 Western rewrite, but the changes on record are lore clarity, not politics. Aion Classic is the closest to the 2009 experience. Aion Reforged opens on 20 October 2026 and isn’t out yet. Chinese builds are a separate case; regional government censorship there wouldn’t make the original woke.
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 material post-dates the game) |
| Woke changes in Classic or a remaster (rule C) | Not found |
| Progressive-press attack (rule D) | Not found |
| 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 at all) |
| Western outfit or young-looking-character censorship | Not found |
Open to update
This page will be revisited if:
- A credit, LinkedIn post or reliable report shows a diversity or sensitivity consultancy on Aion, its Western localisation or Aion Classic.
- A source shows a Western costume redesign or a removed body option compared with the Korean build.
- Aion Reforged (opens 20 October 2026) changes outfits, writing or character options.
- NCSoft or Gameforge adds a Pride event, identity items, or a pronoun option.
Sources: Christian Nutt, “The Complexities Of Launching Aion” (interview with Brian Knox, NCsoft West), Gamasutra / Game Developer, 1 October 2009; GamesIndustry.biz, interview with Jaeho Lee on the Western story rewrite, 25 September 2009; Engadget, “SDCC 09: Aion demo and interview”, 24 July 2009; Carolyn Koh, MMORPG.com PAX preview, 9 September 2009 (leg-length slider); The Refined Geek, “Attack of the Aion Midgets”, 27 October 2009; MMORPG.com forum threads on child-sized avatars (fan discussion, not scored); ZAM and Aion fan wiki entries for Lodas; Eurogamer on TERA’s Elin; aiononline.com, “Rainbow Snake Festival” (2022); Gameforge Aion forum event and Classic threads; MMOHuts and aiononline.com on Aion Reforged (20 October 2026); MJ Guthrie, “Wings Over Atreia: Till log do us part”, Massively / Engadget, 22 August 2011; Patricia Hernandez, Kotaku, 16 May 2013; smurasaki, “The problem with Aion”, LiveJournal, 2 September 2010; MobyGames, Aion (Windows, 2009) credits summary (608 people; full page not retrievable here); Sweet Baby Inc. project list and the “Sweet Baby Inc detected” Steam curator list; Steam store page for AION MMO (app 261430; developer NC, publisher Gameforge 4D GmbH), player tags read on 6 October 2026; Steam library art for the hero image. Lines marked “not found” were searched and not shown.