AION 2: the special Quairerk Subscription will cost $15 — the official French sheet finally reveals what you won't be able to do without it

NC published a Steam announcement in French overnight, Friday, August 21, 2026 at 12:45 AM UTC (2:45 AM Paris time), that fits in one sentence: "From now on, all Founder's Packs, whether purchased previously or in the future, will include a 30-day subscription." The commitment itself isn't new: it dates back to the global livestream on August 7, and we reported on it on the 9th. What is new is the document published two days earlier.

On Wednesday, August 19 at 1:45 AM UTC, the publisher posted on its French-language site notice No. 50000093, "[Announcement] 08/18 (Tuesday) New Item: Special Quairerk Subscription": the full product sheet for AION 2's subscription. Its price, its release date, its purchase caps, and above all a before/after table that describes, line by line, what a player without a subscription will not be able to do.

A $15.00 product, on sale starting October 5

The framing fits in four lines.

• The name: "Special Quairerk Subscription," sold in 30-day increments.
• The price: $15.00, with this caveat — "All prices are listed in dollars. Prices in other currencies may vary depending on the applicable exchange rate." No euro price has been published: the "€15" figure that has been circulating since June, which we ourselves reported, does not come from the publisher.
• Where to buy it: "[In-game menu] → [Subscription]," in the client, not on a web store.
• The sale period: "October 5, 2026, 3:00 PM - Indefinite duration."

This last line has an immediate consequence. Early access opens on Wednesday, September 30, but the subscription doesn't go on sale until Monday, October 5: during the five days of early access, the product sheet provides no way to buy it in game. The only players who will have it are those holding a Founder's Pack. The time zone for this "3:00 PM" is not specified; the Founder's Pack notice stated "3:00 PM CEST."

The before/after table: seven lines, and there's the game without a subscription

This is the heart of the document: NC doesn't just list benefits, it describes the starting state. These seven lines are the official description of the game as it will be experienced without paying. The wording in quotation marks is the publisher's own.

The first line corrects a misconception we had relayed in our economy guide on August 9. Without a subscription, you can put your items up for sale on the Marketplace: it's buying that is blocked. Free players aren't deprived of any income, they're deprived of the ability to spend it with others. The global Marketplace, on the other hand, is indeed closed in both directions.

The last line is the one that weighs on the yield of an evening of play: the subscription doubles Od energy injections and unlocks sacred zones. An eighth line in the table remains empty: the "Base Od energy capacity" becomes an "Od energy capacity increase", with an asterisk specifying that it "will be announced later". No figures.

Three purchase caps introduced by the fact sheet

1. You can't buy whenever you want. "Available for purchase when you have less than 60 days remaining on your current benefits." It's impossible to stack a year in advance. Since a renewal "adds 30 days to the duration of the benefits", the reserve caps out at around 90 days.
2. Three purchases per server per month. The limit appears in the price table.
3. Benefits are tied to the server of purchase: "Subscription benefits apply only to characters on the server on which the subscription was purchased." Spreading your characters across two servers means paying twice.

What the 30 days in the Founder's Pack are really worth

With an official price, the calculation becomes possible. The standard Founder's Pack is listed at $24.99; the 30 days of subscription it includes are worth $15.00 according to the publisher itself, or roughly 60% of the entry tier's price. The rest covers the five days of early access, the Daeva Expedition Supply Chest and the "Vanguard Daeva" title. On the deluxe ($49.99) and ultimate ($99.99) tiers, the proportion drops to 30% and 15%: the difference is paid for in cosmetics, detailed here on August 15.

There remains a calendar trap, in note No. 13 of the Founder's Pack description: "Subscription benefits are valid for 30 days from the moment you click the confirmation button after purchase." It's neither the purchase nor the first login that starts the countdown, but the in-game confirmation click. Now, the publisher has warned that a temporary partition will separate the economy of the early access servers from that of the servers opening on October 5: confirming your 30 days on the morning of September 30 means using up a sixth of it before the full market is in place.

Correction: tier upgrades do exist, but only on PURPLE

One point needs to be corrected. Our article of July 23 stated that no paid upgrade was possible between tiers after purchase: that is inaccurate. Notice No. 50000074 includes a section titled "AION 2 Founder's Pack Upgrade", on sale since Wednesday, July 22, 2026 at 3:00 PM CEST and until the end of early access.

NC specifies that "the price of an upgrade corresponds to the difference between the original purchase price and the price of the higher tier". This is accurate down to the cent: 49.99 minus 24.99 gives 25.00. Upgrading to a higher tier afterwards therefore costs no more than having bought the higher tier outright from the start. The English version of the notice lists the same products at the same prices.

The restriction is strict: all three upgrades are sold on PURPLE only, NC's in-house client. There is no equivalent on Steam. And the purchase platform locks the rest as well: "You can only play the game on the platform on which you purchased it", early access "cannot be transferred between PURPLE and Steam". For anyone torn between tiers: buying the standard pack on PURPLE leaves the door open, buying it on Steam closes it.

One product, three names, and two words to correct

Useful to know for the day you need to look for in-game help: NC does not name its product the same way from one document to another. "Special Quairerk Subscription" in the August 19 sheet, "Special Subscription Quairerk" in the Founder's Pack table, "Special Quairerk Membership" in the August 21 Steam announcement. French is also the only one of the four published languages to write "Quairerk": English says "Special Quai Membership", German "Quai-Premium-Mitgliedschaft", Spanish "Suscripción Quai especial".

Two words also change, and they are the ones that concern the wallet. The French notice writes "Kinah", with a final "h", for the in-game currency, and "Luna" for the premium currency. These are the publisher's official French labels; they replace the "Kina" and "Quna" spellings we had been using based on English-language coverage. The older Founder's Pack notice, however, still writes "Quna exchange shop", "Remote Storage" and "Personal Transactions". French terminology is not yet fixed.

What to remember before September 30

• Do not activate the pack's subscription reflexively on day one: the countdown starts on click, not on purchase.
• Choose your platform and server before your tier: PURPLE allows tier upgrades, Steam does not, and benefits do not carry over from one server to another.
• Refunding the pack remains possible, within a narrow framework: "until the game launches", then "within 14 days, provided playtime is under 2 hours and none of the included items have been used".

One unknown remains, and NC acknowledges it: the increase to Od's maximum energy capacity "will be announced at a later date". For a subscription that governs access to the game's economy, this is the last missing piece of the puzzle. Next public window: Tuesday, August 25 at 8 PM Paris time, for gamescom's Opening Night Live — where NC, let's remember, has promised nothing specific about AION 2.