Does AION 2 Use AI? What NCSOFT Has Disclosed

Yes — AION 2 uses AI, and NCSOFT has said so in writing on the game’s own Steam page. The store page carries an “AI Generated Content Disclosure” reading: “Some in-game assets were created with the assistance of AI tools. Arcana card designs and some icons use AI-generated assets.” That sentence, read verbatim on October 10, 2026, is the whole of NCSOFT’s itemised disclosure. Everything else on this topic falls into one of two buckets: NCSOFT’s general defence of its art team, posted in the game’s Steam discussions, and player debate that has produced no evidence — most visibly the argument over whether the English NPC voices are synthetic.

Does AION 2 use AI?

Yes, and NCSOFT does not dispute it — the question the studio answers is “how much”, not “whether”. The store-page disclosure names two specific uses (Arcana card designs and some icons), and the community manager’s September 30 statement concedes AI use while putting a number on everything else. There is no official source anywhere that says AION 2 contains no AI content.

The on-the-record material divides cleanly into three levels:

Read the table top-down: the first row is the admission, the second is the context NCSOFT chose to give it, and the third row is where almost every argument about this game’s AI actually lives.

What exactly did NCSOFT put in the disclosure?

Two sentences, both naming visual assets. Full text, from the store page’s “AI Generated Content Disclosure” block:

“Some in-game assets were created with the assistance of AI tools. Arcana card designs and some icons use AI-generated assets.”

Two things are worth noticing about what that text includes and what it omits. It includes Arcana — the late-game card layer that unlocks through Transcendence, covered card by card on our Arcana cards guide — and unnamed icons. It omits any mention of audio, voice acting, music, text, translation, cinematics or marketing art. A disclosure listing only assets is not a disclosure of AI voices; it is also not a guarantee that no AI voices exist. It simply does not address them.

The scope question came up immediately in the Steam discussions: on September 30 a player quoted the community manager’s reply and asked “Or only icons and cards?” — specifically whether outfits were included. NCSOFT has not answered that per-category question, so the outfits and wardrobe page still describes skins on the game’s own terms rather than on any AI claim.

What has NCSOFT said publicly beyond the store page?

One statement, posted twice, by the studio’s Steam community manager. The full text appeared in the thread “To what extent does Aion 2 utilize AI?” on September 30, 2026 — the day Advance Access opened — from the account [NC] CM Sakaar, tagged as a developer, who linked back to an earlier answer in the September 24 thread titled “Generative AI disclosure”. Verbatim:

“AION 2 is built by a large, incredibly talented team with hundreds of artists who painstakingly create the characters, environments, animations, and visual identity of Atreia by hand. The overwhelming majority of the art you will experience in the game is a result of their craft and countless hours of work. […] Our disclaimer on our store page was made out of an abundance of caution. 99.9% of the art in the game is made by humans and any use of AI is replaced by our handcrafted finished graphics.”

What that statement answers: the proportion of the art (99.9%), the size of the art team (hundreds of artists), and the claim that AI-assisted work is replaced by handcrafted final graphics. What it does not answer: the original question in that thread asked about music composition, translation, localization, 3D asset generation, writing and AI concept art in pre-production — and the reply gave no per-category breakdown for any of them.

For background on the tooling question NCSOFT has not addressed for AION 2 specifically: NCSOFT’s generative AI brand is VARCO (VARCO Art, VARCO Text and VARCO Human), announced through its December 13, 2023 collaboration with Google Cloud on the VARCO LLM models. Launch coverage such as TheGamer’s October 6, 2026 feature states that the VARCO framework was integrated into AION 2 — that is press reporting, not a claim you will find in any NCSOFT statement about this game. Treat “VARCO powered AION 2” as reported, and the Steam disclosure plus the CM post as confirmed.

Are AION 2’s NPC voices AI-generated?

Nobody has confirmed it, and nobody has ruled it out — as of October 10, 2026 this is the biggest open question on the topic. The debate runs on a Steam thread opened October 6, 2026 titled “Are English NPC voices AI?”, where a player wrote that some NPC voices “sound… off”, with “a noise to it similar to the engine noise of vocal synths” — while adding “I cannot find actual proof of this.” Six replies split: one player says either the voices are AI or “they hired the most unenthusiastic VA that ever did VA”, another praises named performers on specific NPCs, another points at inconsistent pronunciations as evidence of sloppiness rather than synthesis. No NCSOFT account has replied in that thread.

The reason it stays unresolved is structural: the store disclosure covers assets, the CM statement covers art, and no official channel has been asked about — or has volunteered on — voice recording. Reddit’s r/Aion2 ran the same argument in parallel threads (“To what extent does Aion 2 use AI elements?” and “For everyone still whining about AI”), with the same split and the same lack of evidence. If NCSOFT ever answers the voice question, it will land on the official notice board at aion2.plaync.com or in a Steam discussion reply; the reception side of launch — where reviews at release were Mixed, with monetization, not AI, the main complaint per TheGamer’s October 6, 2026 write-up — is tracked on our review page and the pay-to-win and free-to-play page.

Why is there an AI disclosure box on the store page at all?

Because Valve requires one. The Steamworks update “AI Content on Steam”, published January 9, 2024, added an AI section to the Content Survey developers fill out when submitting a game, and Valve stated in that announcement: “We will also include much of your disclosure on the Steam store page for your game, so customers can also understand how the game uses AI.” The AION 2 box is that required field, written by NCSOFT. PC Gamer reported on January 16, 2026 that Valve further clarified the survey to focus on AI-generated content actually consumed by players, rather than behind-the-scenes efficiency tools used in development.

So the box’s presence tells you nothing on its own — every game that answers “yes” to AI content gets one. What carries information is the wording inside it, and in AION 2’s case the wording stops at cards and icons.

What has NCSOFT still not confirmed?

Six items, checked October 10, 2026 — every one asked by players and unanswered by the studio.

The honest summary: NCSOFT has disclosed AI-assisted visual assets — Arcana cards and some icons — and has publicly claimed the rest of the art is human-made and any AI drafts were replaced. On voices, audio, text and the tooling pipeline, there is no official answer to agree with or argue against. When that changes, it changes on the official notice board, and this page changes with it.

Sources and verification

• Steam store page, AION 2 — the “AI Generated Content Disclosure” block quoted verbatim in this article, read October 10, 2026
• Steam discussion, “To what extent does Aion 2 utilize AI?” — reply by the developer-tagged account [NC] CM Sakaar, September 30, 2026, linking the earlier “Generative AI disclosure” thread of September 24, 2026; both read October 10, 2026, statement quoted verbatim
• Steam discussion, “Are English NPC voices AI?” — opened October 6, 2026, six replies, no NCSOFT response as of October 10, 2026
• Steamworks, “AI Content on Steam” — Content Survey AI disclosure and the store-page display rule, January 9, 2024, quoted verbatim; PC Gamer, January 16, 2026, on the content-consumed-by-players clarification
• Google Cloud / NCSOFT joint release, December 13, 2023 — VARCO LLM; and Game Developer’s coverage of VARCO Art / VARCO Text / VARCO Human, used here only as background on NCSOFT’s tooling, not as evidence about AION 2
• TheGamer, October 6, 2026 — launch feature quoting the same Steam disclosure, the VARCO integration claim and the Mixed review snapshot; used only where marked “reported”
• r/Aion2 threads — “To what extent does Aion 2 use AI elements?” and “For everyone still whining about AI”, cited as debate, not as evidence
• Evidence level: Official for the store-page disclosure, the community manager statement and Valve’s policy; reported for VARCO’s role in AION 2 and the review snapshot; unconfirmed for every voice, music, writing and cinematic claim. No AI claim in this article rests on a forum user’s assertion, and unconfirmed rows are labelled as such rather than resolved.