Dungeons in AION 2 fall into four groups, and that split wasn’t invented by players. It comes straight from NCSOFT. Solo content, group dungeons for five players, raids for ten and casual events. Entry to most of them is free; you only pay for the reward at the end, with a resource called Odyle Energy. This overview covers AION 2, not the original AION from 2009. Some dungeons share a name in both games but work differently.
Before you get to the specific numbers: unless we say otherwise, the item levels, costs and limits below describe the Korean and Taiwanese version, which has been live since 19 November 2025 and received the Chapter 1 update on 1 July 2026. The global version has been out since 5 October 2026, free for everyone, on PC; early access for Founder’s Pack owners started on 30 September. Its level cap is 45, so the level 50 requirements in the tables below don’t apply there. What is confirmed for the global version is summed up in its own section further down.
The essentials in five points
- AION 2 has four categories of instanced content, and the split comes from NCSOFT’s official press release, not from an editorial guess.
- You can handle a large share of dungeons on your own. Standard difficulties scale down when a single player enters: bosses lose a big chunk of their health and interrupt resistance.
- Group content is for five players, and Sanctuary raids are for ten. That has been the case in Korea and Taiwan since Chapter 1, and the global version launched the same way. Older sources say four and eight; neither is true anymore.
- Entry is free, the reward isn’t. You can only open the chest at the end with Odyle Energy, and only if you dealt at least 5% of the final boss’s health in damage or healed at least 20% of the damage your party took.
- The peak of the endgame is the Sanctuary raid Chalice of Muspel, the hardest PvE content in the game, with entry from item level 4,500 (Korean and Taiwanese version).
How AION 2 content is organized (official categories)
NCSOFT splits the game’s content into four categories: solo play, group challenges, competitive PvP modes and casual content. The split was presented on the AION2NIGHT livestream and is described in an official press release from August 2025. This article covers three of those four categories, everything except PvP.
It sounds like a formality, but it’s the most practical thing about the whole topic. Guides online each invent their own classification, which is why they contradict each other: one mixes content types with specific dungeons, another puts dungeons and PvP in the same section. Remember the four categories below and you can sort out the rest yourself.
| Category per NCSOFT | What belongs in it | Players | Where to read more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo play | Nightmare, Seal Dungeon, Garrison, Awakening Battle | 1 | this article |
| Group challenges | Expedition, Transcendence, Eradication, Sanctuary | 5, 10 for Sanctuary | this article |
| Competitive PvP | Arena, Battlefield, Rift, Abyss | 1v1 up to mass battles | Abyss and PvP zones |
| Casual content | Daily Dungeon, Shugo Festa | any | this article |
Let’s get what this article won’t cover out of the way. According to NCSOFT, Arena, Battlefield, Rift and Abyss are PvP content. They are instances too, but you play against other players, and they have their own currency and their own rules. They belong in a separate article about the Abyss, not here.
Solo dungeons: what you can do on your own
Solo content in AION 2 is a full part of the game, not a side add-on. It covers four different things, and each has a different purpose, a different entry limit and a different reward. For players who don’t want to hunt for a party, this is the most important section of the article.
- Seal Dungeon (the community calls them Sealed Dungeons): short instances in the starting regions Verteron and Altgard, marked with a question mark on the map. They are the main source of Daevanion points while you level to the cap. Chapter 1 added them to the Eltnen and Morheim regions as well.
- Garrison (stronghold, fortified point): capturable locations in the open world. They aren’t instances in the strict sense, but NCSOFT itself puts them in the solo category.
- Nightmare: solo boss fights across ten difficulty tiers, two entries per day. The reward is Dream Fragments for a special shop. Chapter 1 opened a fourth layer (Dream Layer IV) with a new boss and made it possible to jump straight to tier ten; if you clear a higher tier, you also get the rewards for all the lower ones.
- Awakening Battle: a solo challenge that Chapter 1 expanded with the Doom difficulty and two new variants, Bedchamber of the Dead and Forgotten Storehouse. The official press release uses the name Ascension Trial for the same thing and lists entry to Doom difficulty from item level 4,000. Ascension Trial is also the name you’ll see in the global version.
- Odylium Repository: a solo dungeon with a daily entry, with pet chests as the reward. Only one source mentions it, and it’s a commercial site, so treat it as unverified for now.
The solo trick that changes the whole picture
You can clear the standard difficulties of regular dungeons completely alone. Create a party, set it to private and start the dungeon as its only member. The game then significantly lowers the bosses’ health and interrupt resistance, and the instance becomes manageable.
There is one documented exception: it doesn’t work for the heroic versions at level 45. And there’s one catch in terms of reliability: this comes from a community thread and one commercial website, not from official patch notes. Before you plan your evening around it, keep in mind that NCSOFT has never confirmed it.
| Solo content | Entry limit | Main reward | Chapter 1 change (KR/TW) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seal Dungeon | no hard daily limit | Daevanion points | added to Eltnen and Morheim |
| Garrison | open world | materials, control of the point | no change |
| Nightmare | 2× per day | Dream Fragments | Dream Layer IV, jump to tier 10 |
| Awakening Battle / Ascension Trial | not specified | progression materials | Doom difficulty, two new variants |
| Odylium Repository | 1× per day | pet chests | unverified |
Seal Dungeons are also the fastest way to collect Daevanion points while leveling to the cap. How to fit them into your leveling route is covered in the leveling guide. Where exactly to look for the question marks on the map and what the new regions added is described in the article on the Morheim and Eltnen regions.
Expedition: the core five-player group dungeons
Expedition is the core group endgame content in AION 2, and after Chapter 1 it fits five players, up from four. It’s the first stop after reaching the level cap and also the most frequently repeated content in the game.
In the global version, you don’t have to wait for the level cap to see your first Expedition. Krao Cave opens at level 20 on Exploration difficulty, Urugugu Canyon follows at level 28 and Fire Temple at level 35. More Expeditions unlock at level 45, which is the global level cap.
Expedition has two modes: Exploration is the lighter, exploratory one, and Conquest is split into Normal and Hard difficulties. Conquest Hard is a noticeable step up: it needs a higher item level and costs more energy. The second level of Conquest is Urugugu Canyon, which you can enter at Lv. 45 and item level 1,600.
A group relies on the same role split we describe for the individual classes: someone holds the enemies’ attention and turns them away from the rest of the party, someone heals and someone deals damage. The reference tank is the Templar, the reference healer the Cleric. How each role behaves in combat and why most boss mechanics can be avoided entirely is explained in the article on the combat system.
| Dungeon | Mode / difficulty | Entry (KR/TW after Chapter 1) | Odyle Energy | Added (KR/TW) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fire Temple | Conquest Normal | level 50 · item level 3,800 | 40 | before Chapter 1 |
| Ferocious Horn Den | Conquest Normal | level 50 · item level 3,800 | 40 | before Chapter 1 |
| Dying Dramata’s Nest | Conquest Normal | level 50 · item level 3,800 | 40 | before Chapter 1 |
| Cradle of Nihility | Conquest Normal | level 50 · item level 3,800 | 40 | before Chapter 1 |
| Krao Cave | Conquest Hard | level 50 · item level 4,500 | 60 | before Chapter 1 |
| Draupnir | Conquest Hard | level 50 · item level 4,500 | 60 | before Chapter 1 |
| Urugugu Canyon | Conquest Hard | level 50 · item level 4,500 | 60 | before Chapter 1 |
| Vakron Sky Island | Conquest Hard | level 50 · item level 4,500 | 60 | 15 July 2026 |
| Hall of Illusion | Tier 5 | not specified | not specified | before Chapter 1 |
| Citadel of the Fallen Daeva | Chapter 1 | level 50 · item level 3,500 per NCSOFT, 3,800 per patch notes | 40 | 1 July 2026 |
Fire Temple is the return of a legend, and it’s the only legitimate link between this article and the 2009 game. NCSOFT itself presents it as an iconic dungeon of the original AION, including the boss Kromede. If you played in 2009, you’ll recognize it. If not, the article on AION 2 story and lore explains why the name is coming back.
The weekly reward cap for Expedition is 21 runs, raised from 14 in May 2026. The gear that drops there can be upgraded further; how is described in the article on enchanting and gear upgrades.
Exploration vs Conquest: what’s the difference?
Expedition dungeons come in two modes. Exploration is the lighter version: in the global version it opens early, with Krao Cave at level 20, Urugugu Canyon at level 28 and Fire Temple at level 35. Conquest is the version you run for gear, split into Normal and Hard difficulties, and Conquest Hard needs a higher item level and costs more Odyle Energy. The same instance can appear under both tabs of the Expedition menu, so check which one you are queuing for.
Transcendence: the harder variant with a difficulty ladder
Transcendence is tiered group content with four difficulty levels, also for five players. What sets it apart from Expedition is that it isn’t a set of individual dungeons with a fixed difficulty but a ladder the group climbs based on the strength of its gear.
| Tier | Entry requirement (KR/TW after Chapter 1) |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | level 50 · item level 3,800 |
| Tier 2 | item level 4,100 |
| Tier 3 | item level 4,500 |
| Tier 4 | item level 4,800 |
The specific dungeons are Submerged Life Temple, Mirror of Scarlet Desire, Broken Arkanis and Deus Research Base; Chapter 1 added Abyssal Horn Den. Mirror of Scarlet Desire came out in May 2026 with entry from item level 3,200 and takes place in a space born from fragments of Kromede. After the level cap was raised to 50, its placement shifted.
The rewards from Transcendence are the reason people come here. It drops Arcana cards, Breakthrough Stone Fragments and Stigma Shard Fragments. Stigma Shard Fragments tie directly into the Stigma system: without them, you can’t finish your skill set.
Mirror of Scarlet Desire also gives Noble Crystal, which is used to craft three Arcana sets: Punishing Overture, Protected Soul and Indomitable Dedication. Dungeons are therefore also the main source of crafting materials. How to turn them into a finished item is covered in the article on crafting and professions.
The weekly reward cap for Transcendence is 14 runs, raised from seven in May 2026.
Sanctuary: the toughest PvE content in the game
Sanctuaries are raids for ten players and represent the peak of the PvE endgame. Not eight, as some videos and guides still claim; after Chapter 1 it’s ten. It’s also the smallest slice of the game’s content, and most players never get there.
Chalice of Muspel came out at the end of May 2026, and NCSOFT itself calls it the most demanding PvE dungeon in AION 2. It’s an ancient temple beneath the lava inside the Muspel volcano, the final boss is Scourage Kaldrix and entry starts at item level 4,500. Attempts within the time limit are unlimited. The game gave the first team to clear it an exclusive pet.
The rewards are Lava Heart Weapon, Lava Heart Barrier and Kaldrix Brooch. The other two raids are Abyssal Forge: Ludra (its bosses include Iscariel) and Corroded Decontamination Facility with a boss named Terminator Bargott.
In the global version, Sanctuary Raid: Ludra was playable during early access. With the full launch build on 5 October 2026, NCSOFT temporarily removed it and is preparing an updated version of the encounter with new and adjusted mechanics. NCSOFT will share the new release date by 16 October 2026. Ludra-specific gear earned in early access was removed as well; NCSOFT says it will be granted back when the raid returns, and materials spent on upgrading it will be reimbursed.
Chapter 1 heavily reworked Sanctuary: the number of required final boss kills dropped from two to one, rewards doubled, the time limit is two hours and the reward cost rose to 80 Odyle Energy. Rewards for mid-instance bosses were removed; everything drops from the final chest.
The nine other players for a raid are easiest to find in a static group. A Legion in AION 2 holds up to 128 members, and how to found and run one is covered in the article on Legions and guilds.
Odyle Energy: why a dungeon lets you in but withholds the reward
Entering a dungeon is free. Opening the reward chest at the end costs Odyle Energy. Without energy, you can run the dungeon, kill the bosses and leave empty-handed. This is the most common source of frustration for new players.
Energy is shared across all dungeon types: one pool for solo content, Expedition, Transcendence and Sanctuary. So it isn’t the case that each content type keeps its own balance.
| Content type | Reward cost | Weekly reward cap |
|---|---|---|
| Expedition: Exploration and Conquest Normal | 40 Odyle Energy | 21 runs |
| Expedition: Conquest Hard | 60 Odyle Energy | part of the same cap |
| Transcendence | 40 Odyle Energy | 14 runs |
| Sanctuary | 80 Odyle Energy | not specified |
Energy recharges over time, but recharging stops at the cap. If you save it for later, you’re quietly losing value. The practical rule: spend it as you go, don’t stockpile it. NCSOFT hasn’t published the exact cap. In the global version, the Special Quai Membership raises it, and the official membership notice only says that the details of the increase will be announced later.
Chapter 1 removed entry tickets. Until then, you entered Expedition and Transcendence with Challenge and Recharge tickets, which the update also deleted from inventories. Instead of entries, the game now tracks the weekly number of unclaimed rewards. When it hits zero, the dungeon locks until the next week. The count is shared across all characters on one server.
An honest note on monetization: the game is free-to-play, but some convenience features, including the Market, are tied to the optional Special Quai Membership for $14.99 per 30 days. The membership reaches into dungeons too. It raises your Odyle Energy cap, and it lets you inject Odyle Energy into a reward Cube from Expedition, Transcendence and Sanctuary twice instead of once. Odyle Energy also comes as an item in the Daeva Pass: the free track gives Small Odyle Energy, the paid Premium track gives Odyle Energy.
When you don’t qualify for the chest even with energy
Paying Odyle Energy isn’t enough. The game checks whether you actually contributed to killing the final boss, and if you didn’t, it won’t open the chest (called a Cube in the game) for your energy. This is the second, lesser-known reason players leave a completed run empty-handed.
You only need to meet one of two conditions:
- deal damage equal to at least 5% of the final boss’s health, or
- heal at least 20% of the damage your group took.
The two conditions exist because of roles: damage classes and the tank clear the damage threshold, the healer clears the healing threshold. So nobody is punished for the role they play in the group.
It’s protection against boosting, meaning a stronger player carrying someone through a dungeon who doesn’t take part in the fight at all and just collects the rewards. In practice, it catches players who show up with much weaker gear and the boss dies before they can deal their 5%, or players who stand around for most of the run.
The practical takeaway for a weaker character: stay in the fight the whole time and don’t save your skills for the end. If you know your damage won’t be enough, it pays to join the party in a support role, where your healing earns you the reward.
Daily and casual content
The last category is the smallest, but it belongs in the overview, and nobody else covers it.
- Daily Dungeon: daily instances with their own limit. Namely Crobahki’s Secret Depository, where you have forty seconds to dodge bombs and collect coins you can exchange for Kinah, and Bio-Research Base with seven free entries per week (only one source mentions the latter).
- Shugo Festa: a casual event that Chapter 1 moved to its own maps. Entry is instant, you return to your original spot when you leave, and a new variant, Shugo’s Dilemma, was added. You need at least 1,500 points for a reward.
- Dimensional Invasion: also moved to its own map.
- Eradication: NCSOFT lists it among group content, but no other source describes it. We know the category exists. What you play in it, how many players it fits and what it drops, we don’t know.
Kinah from daily dungeons and coins is also the most stable income for a new character. How to manage it and where the daily caps are is described in the article on in-game currency and economy.
What the dungeons are really called (three sets of translations)
The English dungeon names aren’t settled, and there are at least three independent sets of translations. NCSOFT’s official materials, the community translation of patch notes on AION2 Hub and the Korean encyclopedia namu.wiki disagree on a number of names. If you search for a guide using one of those names, you won’t find the other two versions.
That’s why we list them side by side instead of picking one variant and hiding the rest. In the text above, we use NCSOFT’s official name wherever one exists.
| Official NCSOFT | AION2 Hub (translation of KR patch notes) | namu.wiki and other sites |
|---|---|---|
| Ascension Trial | Awakening Battle | – |
| Chalice of Muspel (27 May 2026) | Chalice of Muspel | Musphel’s Goblet (announcement 13 May 2026) |
| Fire Temple | Fire Temple | Temple of Fire |
| Ferocious Horn Den | Ferocious Horn Den | Fierce Horn Cave |
| Dying Dramata’s Nest | Dying Dramata’s Nest | Dead Dramata’s Nest |
| Cradle of Nihility | Cradle of Nihility | Cradle of Nothingness |
| Urugugu Canyon | Urugugu Canyon | Urugugu Gorge |
| Vakron Sky Island | Vakron Sky Island | Vakron’s Floating Island |
| Submerged Life Temple | Submerged Life Temple | Temple of Sunken Life |
| Broken Arkanis | Broken Arkanis | Shattered Arkanis |
| Citadel of the Fallen Daeva | Citadel of the Fallen Daeva | Castle of the Fallen Deva |
| Seal Dungeon | Seal Dungeon | Sealed Dungeon (community form) |
| Odyle Energy | Odyle Energy | Odel Energy / Aetherine Energy |
The global version settles some of these. NCSOFT’s own notices for the global version use Sealed Dungeon, Stronghold (our Garrison), Odyle Energy, Deus Research Base and Shattered Arkanis, and they call the raid Sanctuary Raid: Ludra. The solo challenge goes by Ascension Trial there, and the first Expeditions keep the names Krao Cave, Urugugu Canyon and Fire Temple.
What Chapter 1 did to dungeons (Korean and Taiwanese version)
This entire section describes the update on the Asian servers, not the global ones. Its official name is Chapter 1. Lands of Sand and Snow, it came out on 1 July 2026, and the community often calls it “Land of Sand and Frost”. We mention that form once because people search for it.
| What | Before Chapter 1 | After Chapter 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Group size | 4 players | 5 players |
| Sanctuary raid size | 8 players | 10 players |
| Dungeon entry | Challenge and Recharge tickets | no tickets, you only pay for the reward |
| Pets inside dungeons | not allowed | allowed, except during boss fights |
| Sanctuary: final boss kills | 2× | 1×, double rewards |
| Minimum contribution for a reward | 3% | 1% |
The update also brought two new dungeons: the Expedition Citadel of the Fallen Daeva and the Transcendence Abyssal Horn Den. Nightmare got a fourth layer and the option to jump straight to tier ten, Awakening Battle got the Doom difficulty and two new variants.
You’ll find the full breakdown of all changes, including classes and stats, in the Chapter 1 patch notes overview.
What doesn’t count as a dungeon: Abyss, arenas and battlefields
Arena, Battlefield, Rift and Abyss are not dungeons. They are instances, but under NCSOFT’s own classification they belong to competitive PvP, because you play against other players. That’s why we don’t count them in this overview.
- Arena: one-on-one and five-on-five fights.
- Battlefield: ten-on-ten with normalized stats.
- Rift: rifts into enemy territory.
- Abyss: a large PvP zone with several layers of Reshanta.
Chapter 1 added PvP content too, namely the surface layer of the Abyss and Battlefield: Siege. They aren’t “more dungeons”, as some other overviews present them; they have their own currency, their own matchmaking and their own rules. The whole topic is covered in the article on the Abyss and PvP zones.
Which dungeons are in the global version?
NCSOFT hasn’t published a full list of dungeons for the global version. Several things are confirmed, though, by its own notices and by the game itself.
The global version launched on 5 October 2026 as a free-to-play game on PC, after five days of early access for Founder’s Pack owners. The details on dates are summarized in the article on the release date.
What is confirmed:
- Group sizes. The Steam page lists solo challenges, 5-player party content and 10-player group dungeons.
- Expeditions start early. Krao Cave opens at level 20, Urugugu Canyon at 28 and Fire Temple at 35; more follow at level 45, the global level cap.
- Transcendence is in the game. NCSOFT’s launch leaderboard event counts runs of Deus Research Base and Shattered Arkanis.
- Sanctuary Raid: Ludra is temporarily removed. NCSOFT will announce its new release date by 16 October 2026.
- Reward Cubes work the same way. Expedition, Transcendence and Sanctuary Cubes are opened with Odyle Energy.
- All instanced content, including dungeons, is cross-server. You can run dungeons with players from other servers.
What isn’t confirmed: the item levels, reward costs and weekly caps in this article come from the Korean and Taiwanese version, which has been running for more than three quarters of a year and received five new instances in that time. The global version has a lower level cap, so don’t read those numbers as global values. Whether the dungeons added in Asia during 2026 are part of the global version, NCSOFT hasn’t said.
What’s still to come is also open. During the January livestream, NCSOFT named the locations Elysium and Pandemonium, which it still hasn’t delivered. Whether they are cities or something else isn’t confirmed, and that determines whether they will bring their own instances.
And one figure that deserves caution: the game’s Steam page says there are over 200 dungeons. That count spans every format, from solo challenges to 5-player party content and 10-player group dungeons. Don’t read it as 200 full group dungeons.
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FAQ
NCSOFT hasn’t published an exact number, but it splits the content into four categories. Solo play includes Nightmare, Seal Dungeons, Garrisons and Awakening Battle; group challenges include Expedition, Transcendence, Eradication and Sanctuary. There are currently around fifteen group dungeons across difficulties. Watch out for older videos: since Chapter 1, Sanctuary is for ten players, not eight.
Yes. Seal Dungeons, Nightmare, Garrisons and Awakening Battle are solo content by design. On top of that, you can clear most standard group dungeons too: create a private party and the game lowers the bosses’ health and interrupt resistance. According to the community, this doesn’t work for the heroic versions at level 45, and NCSOFT has never confirmed it.
Expedition is the core group content for five players with two modes, Exploration and Conquest. Transcendence is for the same number of players but has four difficulty tiers with a rising entry item level. Sanctuaries are raids for ten players and represent the hardest PvE content in the game. The hardest of them is Chalice of Muspel.
Odyle Energy is the resource you use to pay for opening the reward chest (Cube) at the end of a dungeon. Entry is free, so without energy you can clear the instance but leave empty-handed. Expedition and Transcendence cost 40, Conquest Hard 60 and Sanctuary 80. The second reason you might not get a reward is not contributing enough to the fight: you have to deal at least 5% of the final boss’s health in damage or heal at least 20% of the damage your party took. It’s protection against boosting.
Entry isn’t limited; the number of rewards is. The weekly cap is 21 runs for Expedition and 14 for Transcendence; both were doubled in May 2026, from 14 and seven respectively. The number of remaining rewards is shared across all characters on one server, so you can’t get around the limit with a second character.
No. Under NCSOFT’s own classification, Arena, Battlefield, Rift and Abyss are competitive PvP content. They are instances, but you play against other players, and they have their own currency and their own matchmaking. Some other guides list them among dungeons, which leads to confusion. In our guide, they have their own article on the Abyss.
NCSOFT hasn’t published a full list. What is confirmed: the global version has a level cap of 45, parties of five and ten-player group dungeons. Krao Cave opens at level 20, Urugugu Canyon at 28 and Fire Temple at 35. Transcendence includes Deus Research Base and Shattered Arkanis. Sanctuary Raid: Ludra was temporarily removed with the full launch on 5 October 2026, and NCSOFT will announce its new date by 16 October. The item levels and costs in this article describe the Korean and Taiwanese version.
Exploration is the lighter Expedition mode, open in the global version from level 20 (Krao Cave). Conquest is the mode you run for gear: it has Normal and Hard difficulties, higher item level requirements and costs more Odyle Energy.
Hold Alt to show the mouse cursor, then click the door icon with an arrow (Out) to the right of the minimap. That takes you out of the instance.
Dungeons are what you’ll do most often in AION 2 after reaching the level cap, and NCSOFT adds content to them practically every month; between January and July 2026 alone, five instances were added. You’ll find all other guides in the AION 2 guides section. Information verified as of 7 October 2026.