AION 2 factions: Elyos vs Asmodians
Your faction decides which servers you can play on. Elyos and Asmodians have separate servers and meet in the Abyss, and NC lists rifts among the global game’s PvP, so the one choice that really matters is being on the same side, and the same server, as the people you want to play with. Nothing NC has published gives either faction a gameplay edge.
“Elyos and Asmodian servers are separate, but our factions meet in The Abyss for action-packed PvP battles.”
The servers NC added during the Launch Scale Test came in pairs, one Elyos and one Asmodian. The launch server list has not been published yet; how regions and servers are set up is on regions and servers.
The two sides at a glance
| Topic | Elyos | Asmodians |
|---|---|---|
| NC’s tagline | “Guardians of Light. Wings of Grace.” | “Forged in Shadows. Wings of Dominion.” |
| First companion | Hithanya, described as strong-willed | Nemon, described as mysterious |
| Homeland (Korean guide) | The south of Atreia | The north of Atreia |
| How the Korean guide sums them up | A people who stand for grace and holiness | Rough, warlike and beast-like in temper |
| Servers | Elyos-only | Asmodian-only |
The companions come from NC’s own post introducing them:
“Meet the person who will find you first on your journey in AION 2. Elyos will encounter the strong-willed Hithanya and Asmodians will travel alongside the mysterious Nemon.”
(From the official AION 2 account on X, on the faction guides)
What the choice does and does not lock in
- Your server, and so your friends
- Servers belong to one faction. Pick with your group before anyone makes a character, and check the class spread on the class page while you are at it.
- Your enemies
- The other faction is who you fight in the Abyss and in the open world. How that PvP works is on PvP and the Abyss.
- Dungeon parties (Korean version)
- In Korea, Expedition, Transcendence and Sanctuary dungeons let Elyos and Asmodians join the same party, with shared party and dungeon chat. NC has not said whether global works the same way; for Early Access it has only said that party matching spans all Early Access servers in your region.
- The Market (Korean version)
- The Korean World Market trades with players on every server, but only with your own faction. The global version has not confirmed the same rule.
- Your class
- NC lists the same eight classes with no faction attached, but no official English text says in so many words that every class is open to both sides.
NC has also not published whether one account can hold characters on both sides, or whether a character can ever change faction. Because each server is one faction, playing the other side means making a character on another server.
The story in brief
NC’s pitch is a world cut in two. Its official account put it in one line: “In AION 2, the planet Atreia is split in half.” A later post set the scene for the war: “The Elyos-Asmodian War ended with the fall of the AION Tower.” The lore section of the official site is told in five chapters, whose titles give the outline: Collapsed AION Tower, Divided Atreia, Death of the Empyrean Lord, Age of the New Dragon Lords, and Daeva, the winged beings every player character is.
You do not need the first game to follow it. NC’s pre-release FAQ answers that directly: “You can jump into AION 2 with no prior knowledge of AION’s world or story!”
So which one?
Go with your friends first, looks second. If you are joining alone, pick the side whose look and story you prefer, then settle the class and server before claiming anything from a Founder’s Pack, because several pack items stay with the first character or server that claims them. The character creator is the next stop, and the map page covers what the Korean guide says about each side’s lands.