AION 2 Pets Guide — Souls, Mounts and Auto-Looting

AION 2 pets are companions rather than a separate mini-game: they follow you, change into rideable mounts, and can pick things up for you. That much is NCSOFT’s own wording on the official global teaser site. Almost everything else about the system — how many pets exist, how you obtain them, what their attribute slots do, and whether their progress is shared — is either drawn from the Korean and Taiwanese build or still unpublished for the global service.

What pets do in AION 2

AION 2 pets are collectible companions that follow your character, can transform into rideable mounts, and can provide benefits such as auto-looting. That is the official description on NCSOFT’s global teaser site, and it is the only pet description NCSOFT has published for the global service.

“Collect lovable companions that follow you around and transforms into rideable mounts and can provide benefits such as auto-looting”

The sentence is quoted exactly as published. Three separate claims sit inside it — a pet follows you, a pet becomes a mount, and a pet can auto-loot — and all three are official. The quote is also the ceiling for what can be stated as global fact: NC has not published a pet count, a pet list, any stat value, or the in-game ways pets are earned. Everything below the three behaviours is KR/TW reference unless it is labelled otherwise.

Pets as mounts, and auto-looting

The confirmed behaviour is short enough to list — and this list is the whole of what global players can plan around:

• Follow — a pet trails your character as a visible companion.
• Mount — the same companion transforms into a rideable mount, folding companion and travel into one collectible.
• Auto-loot — the pet can collect drops for you, one of the “benefits” the official description names.

The mount half is the more consequential of the three. Because the pet becomes the mount rather than summoning a separate one, a single acquisition covers two needs, and a player’s pet choice starts to interact with travel rather than being cosmetic-only. The auto-loot half is the one most likely to have fine print: on the Korean and Taiwanese service, auto-looting is tied to an auto-loot ticket bought with soul-bound Kinah, which means the convenience is paid for in a currency you cannot freely trade. That is KR/TW reference — the global pricing and rules, including whether there is a ticket at all, are not announced.

Pet souls and how a pet unlocks

In the Korean and Taiwanese build, a pet is not simply granted as a finished creature — it is unlocked through a pet soul, and once unlocked it is developed with resources. The two pieces to keep separate are the unlock and the growth:

• Pet soul — the item that brings a specific pet into your collection.
• Soul Crystals — the resource spent on developing a pet once you own it.
• Genus Insight — the layer that opens a pet’s attribute slots (covered in the next section).

None of this changes the confirmed global behaviour, because the global service has not said how pets are earned in-game. It does explain why KR/TW pet guides read the way they do: they track which soul a pet comes from, how many Soul Crystals it wants, and which Insight slots it exposes. If NC ships the same structure globally, those guides will translate cleanly; if not, they remain a regional preview. Treat the soul economy as a model, not a global promise.

Soul Crystals and Genus Insight

Genus Insight is the pet progression layer seen in the Korean and Taiwanese build, and it is the part with concrete numbers. In that service it opens attribute slots on a pet, and coverage of the live game reports nine Genus Insight slots. Raising all nine to level 10 is reported to unlock the title “Unbound by Genus” — an account-level badge rather than a single-slot perk, which is why it reads as a completion goal.

Two cautions follow. First, the nine-slot figure and the title come from community video coverage, not from an NC patch note, so they describe a live service rather than a global guarantee. Second, the same reporting says pet attributes and Genus results are shared at the account or server level rather than per character. If that holds, investing in a pet is a one-time account investment instead of a per-character cost — a very different proposition — but it is exactly the kind of rule NC can change between services, so it stays secondary here.

Pet leveling and owned effects

The Korean and Taiwanese build tracks pet levels and keeps something like a pet map of known locations, and pet stat values feed into the same character-power curve as other systems. Read together with Genus Insight, that describes a collectible with a growth track: you unlock a pet, spend Soul Crystals, open Insight slots, and level the pet, and the result is a small but real contribution to your character’s numbers.

For global players, none of that is confirmed. NC has not said that pets level, that they grant stats, or that they can be strengthened at all beyond following, mounting and looting. The practical consequence is that pre-launch pet planning should stay light: collect the free rewards, learn the three confirmed behaviours, and wait for the client before assuming any stat track. A pet you pick for its looks today may or may not carry a power budget later, and no launch-week page can settle that.

Where pets come from

Two acquisition routes are confirmed, and both are tied to sign-ups rather than gameplay. Subscribing to the official AION 2 newsletter grants a Pagati pet plus a choice of one of four others: Konutin Worker, Papis, Black Smoke Murute or Silver Blade Rotan. Separately, the Ultimate Founder’s Pack includes a Black Dragon pet. The Founder’s Pack comparison covers which tier carries which item, and the pre-registration rewards guide explains how the newsletter reward is meant to reach you.

What is not announced is how the newsletter pet is delivered, or whether either reward can be earned in-game later. Two cautions follow. First, the newsletter and the Founder’s Pack are independent paths and stack — taking one does not forfeit the other. Second, wishlisting the game on Steam gives no in-game reward at all; it only signs you up for launch notifications, despite pages that list it as a pet source. In the Korean and Taiwanese service, further pets are reported to come from pet souls and Daily Duty Quest resources, but those are KR/TW reference and community-reported respectively.

What is still unconfirmed for global

Past the three confirmed behaviours, the global pet system is mostly a blank. The table separates what NC has published from what regional coverage supplies.

The one thing you can plan around now is the schedule. AION 2 opens globally on October 5, 2026, with Advance Access from September 30, and the character creation guide covers what to settle first. Pet progression is a post-launch question, and it will be measured against the confirmed dungeons and the wider systems index once the global build is playable.

Sources and verification

• NCSOFT official global teaser site, aion2.ncsoft.jp/en — pet description quoted verbatim above (“follow you around and transforms into rideable mounts and can provide benefits such as auto-looting”)
• NCSOFT official AION 2 site, aion2.plaync.com — newsletter reward: Pagati pet plus a choice of Konutin Worker, Papis, Black Smoke Murute or Silver Blade Rotan
• Steam store page, AppID 3393110 — Ultimate Founder’s Pack contents, including the Black Dragon pet
• Korean and Taiwanese service coverage (pet souls, Soul Crystals, Genus Insight, pet map, auto-loot ticket) — KR/TW reference only, from secondary guides and community reporting
• Community video and forum coverage (nine Genus Insight slots, the “Unbound by Genus” title, account/server-shared results, from ggwtb and YouTube) — secondary, KR/TW reference only
• Daily Duty Quest pet resources — community-reported for the KR/TW service, not official

Evidence level: Official / NCSOFT for following, mounting and auto-looting, and for the two reward routes; KR/TW reference and secondary community reporting for every progression detail. No pet count, drop rate, stat value or acquisition rule is presented as a global fact, because NCSOFT has not published any for the global build. Items marked unconfirmed were checked against the sources above on September 24, 2026.