Aion 2 goes free on Steam Monday at 6 a.m. PT

Aion 2 is free to play on PC starting Monday, Oct. 5. The launch is at 6 a.m. Pacific Time, 13:00 UTC, according to Game Rant. In Mexico City that is 7 a.m., because Mexico no longer changes its clocks. The Mexico City conversion is ours: publisher NC has not posted a time for Mexico.

Until now only players who bought a Founder's Pack could get in, with access since Sept. 30. On Steam the packs cost $24.99 for Standard, $49.99 for Deluxe and $99.99 for Ultimate. On Steam Mexico the same packs are listed at 449.99, 899.99 and 1,799.99 pesos. If you already paid, you keep your account and cosmetics. If you wait until Monday, you lose no progress, but you join servers that already have five days of play on them.

The minimum requirements listed on the Steam page:

• System: 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 and DirectX 12.
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel Core i5-10500.
• Memory: 8 GB of RAM.
• Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti with 4 GB.
• Storage: 100 GB, preferably on an SSD.

For the recommended setup, the page asks for a Ryzen 7 3700X or Core i7-11700, 16 GB of RAM and an RTX 2070 with 8 GB. At full HD it suggests the Very Low graphics preset on the minimum spec and Low on the recommended one.

Check your free space before downloading. At 100 GB, storage is the biggest hurdle for anyone on an entry-level laptop. The Steam page lists Spanish (Spain) with text, but full audio comes only in English, Japanese and Korean.

Paid access had a rough start. According to Game8, servers capped character creation almost immediately and NC added capacity in Europe and North America. 80 Level reports a peak of 171,530 concurrent players, a figure from SteamDB. None of the sources says which region Mexican players are assigned to.

Founder's Pack cosmetics apply to every character on the account, according to PCGamesN, although that feature is still waiting to be implemented.