There is an important qualifier immediately: 73,761 is not the total AION 2 test population. The Launch Scale Test is available through both Steam and PURPLE, while SteamDB can naturally only see players using Steam. NC has not published a combined concurrency figure for the two platforms, so the actual number of people exploring the global version at peak was higher. How much higher, we simply do not know.
73,761 Players Joined a Test Where Nothing Survives
The number becomes more interesting once you look at the structure of the test itself. Day 1 only ran from 15:00 to 21:00 CEST on September 17, giving players a six-hour window. The second session runs from 21:00 CEST on September 18 until 03:00 on September 19.
NC has also made it very clear that this is not early progression disguised as a beta. Characters carry from Day 1 into Day 2, but everything is wiped once the test finishes. Nothing transfers into Advanced Access on September 30 or the full October launch.
The Market, Quna Exchange, player trading, Membership systems, Founder's Pack bonuses and all payment functionality are disabled as well. The level cap is 37. In other words, tens of thousands of Steam players turned up knowing perfectly well that everything they accomplished would shortly disappear into the MMO void. That is usually a reasonably healthy indication that people are curious.
This Is Not the Same as a Launch Player Count
It is tempting to take a SteamDB graph and immediately begin predicting the future. We would avoid that.
A free public test and a live MMO launch are two very different things. There was no purchase required, no invitation system and no meaningful commitment involved beyond downloading a rather large client. Some players will have logged in purely to inspect the character creator, test performance or satisfy their curiosity before deciding that AION 2 is not for them.
At the same time, the limited six-hour window works in the opposite direction. This was not a normal 24-hour period where players could log in whenever convenient. Everyone using Steam had to squeeze into the same relatively narrow block of time, which makes concurrency particularly visible.
The number is therefore best treated for what it is: the first concrete indication of global interest in AION 2 on Steam, not a prediction of how many people will still be playing three weeks after launch.
PURPLE Makes the Real Test Population Impossible to See
This is also why comparisons with other MMO tests need some care. AION 2 is not a Steam-only release. Players can access the global game directly through NC's PURPLE platform as well, something we covered in our Steam vs PURPLE guide.
Someone playing through PURPLE never appears on SteamDB's chart. That means 73,761 should effectively be read as “at least 73,761 concurrent PC players” rather than the complete peak for Day 1.
Whether Steam becomes the dominant platform after launch will be interesting to watch. Steam gives us transparent public concurrency data, while PURPLE does not, so the visible number will always represent only one part of AION 2's global audience.
The Test Is Also Doing What NC Actually Needs It to Do
The entire point of a Launch Scale Test is to put real pressure on infrastructure before the permanent characters arrive. NC opened the test to everyone with no keys, invitations or registration list, which makes a large turnout considerably more useful than a carefully controlled closed beta.
It also gives players their first chance to test many of the things we have spent the past week discussing theoretically: the eight global launch classes, the game's combat, regional latency and whether their machines actually meet the AION 2 PC requirements.
NC scheduled maintenance after the first test session, with the game servers temporarily unavailable ahead of Day 2. For a scale test, that is not particularly alarming. Finding problems while the characters are disposable is considerably preferable to discovering them on September 30 while several thousand Founder's Pack owners are staring angrily at a login screen.
Day 2 Could Push the Steam Peak Even Higher
The second Launch Scale Test session begins tonight at 21:00 CEST. The later European start and Friday timing could produce a different concurrency pattern, although there is no guarantee the Day 1 record will be beaten.
We will know the final Steam peak once that second session is over. For now, 73,761 concurrent Steam players is the number to beat.
Then comes the considerably more important test. Founder's Pack owners enter through Advanced Access on September 30, followed by the full AION 2 global release on October 5.
A six-hour test cannot tell us whether AION 2 will become the next long-term MMO success. It can tell us that a lot of people were willing to turn up for the audition.
73,761 of them on Steam alone, in fact.
