First look at Aion, the new angelic MMO

Video: After becoming a hit in Korea and China, Aion gets an Australian release date.

Avid MMO fans looking for an alternative to the world-eating power of World of Warcraft will be pleased to know that there's soon going to be a new kid on the Australian MMO block. It's been announced that Aion is launching in this country on the 23rd of September this year, with both a standard and sexy collecter's edition available.

Aion's a game of celestial combat and adventure, with players choosing to be either of two warring races - the Elyos or the Asmodian avatars. Most interestingly, the game features flight (which unlocks at level 10 for all players) as a heavy gameplay element. It'll influence questing, combat and much more. On top of that Aion features a deep crafting system, serious character customisation options (which will be a necessity with only two races) and over 1,500 quests.

The game already very popular in Korea, where it won the Grand Award of 2008, and in China.

To get a greater idea of the game's scope, check out this vid featuring key members of the dev and community teams.

That's some slick graphics right there. We're endeavouring to get some time with the ongoing beta shortly, so should have views on the game itself soon. Watch this space.

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9 Comments

thesorehead Jun 29, 2009 1:38 PM	With so many MMOs available, it's gonna have to be bloody good to keep subscriptions.
majestic975 Jun 29, 2009 2:02 PM	Lani Blazier is HOT
Hawkeye Jun 29, 2009 2:35 PM	Good helps, but I think being so different in look and feel can't hurt, either. Then again, Final Fantasy XI hit those notes, and it sucked! - DH
Ihsan Jun 29, 2009 3:52 PM	FFXI was good for what it was (and it still has arguably the best classing system in any mmo) but it doesn't tend to sit well with the western market since you don't get a quest tracker to hold your hand and tell you where to kill mobs, you actually have to group to get things done (shocking in an mmo I know) and a lot of the controls really have to be dumbed down so that it can work across multiple consoles/controllers. Hopefully NCSoft doesn't pander to the crying masses that will inevitably arrive from WoW looking for the next big thing. Aion atm really does give you a sense of accomplishment when you do things (rather then just handing out rewards for logging in like certain other games) and it rewards skill over mindless faceless rolling on keyboards so that a good six man group can actually take down a fair amount of zerg. The game is absolutely gorgeous too and runs like a dream, take note Mythic. All that's really moot anyway, there's only two words that really matter, bewb slider!
Tezlin Jun 29, 2009 3:54 PM	Lani Blazier is hot. Really hot.
Argotha Jun 29, 2009 6:26 PM	New pants please?
Argotha Jun 29, 2009 6:27 PM	(and I'm a FPS and RTS player) sorry double post ;)
yoink Jul 2, 2009 6:53 PM	I ditched WoW, about to give AoC a run but I really can't wait for this game...
brumby92 Jul 30, 2009 11:56 PM	wonder how long it will take before WoW eats this up and Aion goes broke..

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