In Aion, gamers explore a celestial world of breath-taking beauty and epic adventure. Players create either winged Elyos or Asmodian avatars, sworn enemy races that discover a common foe: the twisted and depraved Balaur.

In Aion, players experience the thrill of flight as a strategic and integral part of gameplay that touches combat, quests, and exploration. In addition to unprecedented character customization and unmatched visuals, Aion invites players to soak up its breath-taking world through exploration of more than 1,500 quests, intense visceral combat, and a deep crafting system. For the first time in an MMO, Aion introduces a new game system that pits players against each other and their environment simultaneously in an otherworld zone called the Abyss.

Aion’s Open Beta Test featuring version 1.5 will take place 6-13th September and will include numerous Western enhancements, including improvements to Aion’s innovative character customisation with a host of Western styles, as well as new zones, instances, skills, quests and continued game balancing and improvements. Open Beta will retain a level cap for both Elyos and Asmodians characters at 30 allowing players to focus on getting to the same level so they can explore the lands of Atreia together, as well as the Abyss.

Players who have pre-ordered Aion will be treated to a Pre-Select and a two-day Headstart period giving them the opportunity to explore, organise and progress through the game prior to the official launch. Pre-Select will take place on 18th September, while Aion’s Headstart will begin 20th September. Players can still participate in the Aion’s Pre-Select and Headstart programs by pre-ordering the game through several participating online and brick-and-mortar retailers.

Key Features

• A massively multiplayer online game featuring antagonistic relationships between angels, demons and a server-controlled NPC faction, The Dragons.
• The most amazingly beautiful and detailed MMORPG ever, that brings the realities of what you can imagine to life.
• The Crytec game engine is used to create unprecedented freedom of 3D movement for your character in the game world - climb sheer cliffs and fly through moving clouds.
• Powered by cutting-edge graphics technology, this game provides Hollywood quality cinematic control of scene and perspective.
• Control and transform the world – servers feature independently driven, player inspired storylines.
• Cultural boundaries are defied through this offering of art, story and style with global appeal.
• Asia’s top New Age musician, Yang Bang Ean, whose work includes compositions for television, feature films and anime series such as the “The Twelve Kingdoms™” (Juuni Kokki), provides an amazing original score for the game.
• Introducing PvPvE – an evolving conflict system that manages the complex relationships and alliances between realms, races and guilds, and also controls an NPC faction, The Dragons, who are the common enemy of all players.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity is set to launch in North America on Sept. 22, 2009 (Sept. 25 in Europe).