In AION 2, wings are a basic way of getting around, not an endgame reward. You get them when you ascend to Daeva (at level 5 for Elyos and level 6 for Asmodians), and you can fly with them almost anywhere: NCSOFT literally promises “full aerial freedom in every region”. The only thing keeping you on the ground is flight energy, and you extend it by enhancing your wings.
This guide is about AION 2, not the original AION from 2009. That matters more here than with other topics: many of the flying guides you’ll find in search results today describe a seventeen-year-old game, where you got wings at level 9 or 10 and could only fly in designated flight zones. Neither is true in AION 2.
Before we get to the numbers: the fact that you can fly, and fly freely, is confirmed for the global version too. It comes from NCSOFT’s official materials and the game’s Steam description. The specific numbers, quest names, controls and the enhancement system, however, come from the Korean and Taiwanese version, which has been live since 19 November 2025. NCSOFT hasn’t yet said what content the global version will launch with.
The key points in five bullets
- You get wings early: by ascending to Daeva at level 5 (Elyos) or level 6 (Asmodians), not at level 9 or 10 like in the original game.
- You can fly practically everywhere. NCSOFT’s official wording is “Full aerial freedom in every region.”
- Flying is limited by flight energy, not by the map, and the size of that energy pool is set by the Flight Power stat, which grows as you enhance your wings.
- Wings are gear, not just looks. They can be enhanced up to +10 and, besides longer flight, give attack, defense and accuracy.
- Watch out for other guides. If a text talks about flight zones, level 10 or the Altgard and Verteron regions, it’s about the 2009 game.
When you get wings in AION 2
Wings come with your ascension to Daeva, and in AION 2 that happens within the first minutes of play. Daeva is your character’s status after going through ascension: an ordinary inhabitant of the world becomes a winged being. Until then, your character can’t fly at all.
| Faction | Ascension level | Quest | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elyos | 5 | Fledgling Wings | NPC Asahr, Ascension Subspace |
| Asmodians | 6 | Spread Your Wings | NPC Asahr, Ascension Subspace |
The developers confirmed directly that you have to earn your wings. In an interview with IGN at Summer Game Fest, they summed it up by saying that you don’t have wings at the start and have to earn them, but once you have them, you can take off at any time. For a game whose Steam description reads “The only MMORPG built for aerial wing combat”, that’s a detail nobody mentions.
If you read somewhere that you get wings at level 10, that was a guide for the original AION. This isn’t a fringe mistake: search engines themselves serve up this number today, because they have no better source on flying in AION 2. We cover this in detail below in the section on search traps.
The ascension itself is also a story milestone and unlocks more than just flying. What being a Daeva means in the game world and everything ascension brings is covered in our article on ascending to Daeva. How to reach levels 5 and 6 as fast as possible is summed up in the leveling guide.
How to take off and switch to gliding
- Take off: the V key. Your character lifts off the ground and flight energy starts draining.
- Glide: the spacebar. In the air, it switches your character into a gliding descent, which uses less energy.
- Land: by gliding down, or when your flight energy runs out. In that case your character falls.
Where you’re allowed to fly
In AION 2 you can fly practically anywhere. It’s the sharpest difference from the original game and the only official statement on the scope of flying that exists: in its press release from 30 May 2025, NCSOFT writes, word for word, “full aerial freedom in every region”.
In the 2009 AION it was the other way around. You could fly only in designated flight zones, and everywhere else your character could only glide down from a cliff. For many players this was the biggest frustration of the whole game, and that’s exactly why this change is the most interesting thing you can say about AION 2.
| Element | Original AION (2009) | AION 2 |
|---|---|---|
| When you get wings | After ascension at level 9, through a ceremony in the capital | By ascending at level 5 (Elyos) or 6 (Asmodians) |
| Where you can fly | Only in designated flight zones | In practically every region |
| How long | Base 1 minute, extended by gear and titles | Flight energy gauge, extended by Flight Power |
| Wings as an item | Extra slot with stats | Gear with stats, enhanceable up to +10 |
| Collecting wings | Marginal | Dozens of sets, collecting also has a mechanical benefit |
| Underwater movement | No | Yes, new compared to the original game according to NCSOFT |
Exceptions that remain in AION 2
Freedom of flight isn’t absolute. The best-known exception is the Abyss, the game’s main PvP zone: it consists of several layers stacked on top of each other, and each has different movement rules. In the lowest layer you can fly without restrictions, while in Chaotic Middle Reshanta flying is forbidden and players move around by gliding on air currents. The intent is clear: to force ground fights.
Why you visit each layer, how many there are and how you earn Abyss Points in them is covered in our article on the Abyss as a PvP zone. Here, all you need to know is that the layer decides whether you fly or glide.
You can expect restrictions in cities, interiors and dungeons, but no source states this explicitly. The wording the search engine quotes as the answer to whether you can fly in AION 2 is also worth noting: it talks about flying “almost anywhere on normal maps”. That alone suggests maps with a special mode exist.
Land, water, sky: three layers of the world
Alongside flying, AION 2 adds one more layer of movement: underwater. NCSOFT lists it as “underwater exploration, a feature not present in the original”. This splits the world into three explorable layers: land, water and sky.
Switching between them is meant to be seamless. According to the description of the movement system, you can take off from water in a single motion, with no loading and no extra animation. For a look at the areas where you fly and what to expect there, see our article on the Morheim and Eltnen regions.
Flying also ties into gathering: Odyle is gathered in flight, so wings aren’t just transport but also a work tool. What you craft from gathered materials and why you’ll have to pick a profession is explained in our article on crafting and professions.
Can you fight in the air in AION 2?
This is the biggest open question in this whole topic, and the sources directly contradict each other. For a game whose marketing claim on Steam reads “The only MMORPG built for aerial wing combat”, that’s a pretty big deal.
The official game description speaks in favor of aerial combat. On the role of wings, it adds: “As a Daeva, flight is not a travel mechanic, it is how you fight, how you explore, and how you impose your will on the world.”
Against that stands a single guide from the commercial site u4n.com, which claims the opposite in its flying guide: “wings cannot be used in combat”. The same article, however, demonstrably contains data from the 2009 game elsewhere, so its weight is limited.
Nobody has settled this contradiction yet, and we won’t settle it here. The most likely reading is that aerial combat exists but is tied to certain places or certain skills, while u4n describes the regular open world. That’s a guess, though, not a proven fact. We’ll only know for sure from the global build.
The only certain thing is that mobility plays a role in fights either way. What ground combat looks like, why the game offers a switchable Action and Classic mode, and what most players choose in large-scale battles is described in our article on the combat system. Which classes benefit most from mobility is covered in the class overview.
Flight energy: how long you can stay in the air
What keeps you in the air is the flight energy gauge. When it runs out, you start falling. So it’s not a fixed time limit in minutes but a pool you use up, and one whose size you can increase. It’s determined by the Flight Power stat.
Energy drains during active flight, and faster when you use speed skills. Gliding is more economical, which is why you don’t fly long distances in a straight line but alternate taking off with gliding descents. The difference between flying and gliding is the core of the whole mechanic, and most other guides blur it.
Three ways to fly longer
- Enhance your wings. Higher Flight Power means a bigger energy pool. It’s the most reliable way, because it doesn’t depend on luck or on what happens to drop.
- Get better wings. Individual sets have different stats, including flight time and speed, and differ in rarity.
- Use the environment. The world has flight rings that refill energy or speed up your flight, and there are also consumables with the same effect.
According to one source, flight energy also drains roughly half as fast in the Abyss as elsewhere. That makes sense for a zone built entirely over a chasm, but confirmation from a second source is missing.
You deliberately won’t find specific numbers in seconds here. Every figure on flight duration you can track down comes from sources about the original AION, where the base time was one minute. No verifiable source gives a specific number for AION 2, and copying someone else’s would mean passing off a seventeen-year-old value as a current one.
The impressions of players from the Korean and Taiwanese version are also interesting: they describe the gauge as balanced, noting that flight time grows as your wing collection grows. It’s a community claim, but it fits with what the developers themselves say about collecting wings (see below).
Wings as gear: enhancement up to +10
Wings in AION 2 aren’t cosmetic. They’re items with stats that you enhance, and unlike the rest of your gear, there’s no risk involved. The system is called the Wings Enhance System and you can push it all the way to +10.
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Maximum level | +10 |
| Success chance | 100% at every level |
| Failure penalty | None, failure doesn’t happen |
| Materials | Kina (players of the original game know it as Kinah) + Enhancement Stones |
| Return on extraction | 100%, invested materials are returned |
| What increases | Flight Power, Attack Power, Defense, Accuracy |
Extraction means you pull the enhancement back out of the wings without losing the materials. So if you find a better set, you don’t lose what you invested in the old one.
An honest caveat nobody else gives: this mechanic is risk-free only for wings. Regular gear is guaranteed up to +10, and above that it can fail. The item isn’t destroyed, but the Kina isn’t returned. Exactly where the risk threshold lies is covered in our article on gear enhancement. How much Kina you actually sacrifice and why it pays to watch the daily cap is summed up in our article on the in-game currency and economy.
That leaves the question that always comes up with a free-to-play game. The developers say paid options are purely cosmetic and that you can fully optimize your character without paying. The stats of the wings themselves, however, are earned by playing, not in the shop, and those are two different things that other articles mix up. What the game’s monetization really looks like is covered in our article on price and the cash shop.
Collecting wings: why it pays to have more of them
In AION 2 you collect wings, and according to the developers it pays off even if you already have “your” pair. After a hands-off demo with three developers, TheGamer summed it up like this: “every set you collect will increase your overall movement speed”.
If that’s true, it’s the most interesting mechanic in the whole system: the game motivates you to keep collecting even after you find your ideal pair, which flips the usual logic of chasing one best item. So far, though, it’s a single source and a paraphrase from a demo, not patch notes.
IGN describes a second collecting layer: the world is scattered with “feathers” that boost your character’s ability to fly, and there are a lot of them. According to the description, you can spend a whole in-game day collecting them.
On top of that, you pick your wings right at the start: they have their own screen during character creation, right after appearance customization. Two outlets confirm this independently, and they talk about dozens of visually distinct sets, from angelic feathers to outright comical ones. It’s not an irreversible decision, because you get more sets by playing.
Exactly how many sets are in the game is impossible to say. A community overview from November 2025 listed 29 wing sets, and more have been added since: in July 2026 a community video came out dedicated entirely to newly added wings. So treat it as “dozens”, not as a number.
A full list doesn’t belong in this article, but there are databases for it: talentbuilds.com and questlog.gg list wing sets, including rarity and required level. For finding a specific set, they’re better tools than any text. Wings let you soar in the game – the GamersTogether shop has AION 2 merch for every day outside it.
And why do Daevas fly in the first place? In AION 2, wings aren’t a means of transport but a sign of ascension, and it’s all grounded in the story, which is summed up in our article on the story and lore.
Warning: most flying guides describe the 2009 game
If you search for “aion flying”, you’ll mostly get guides for the original AION. They look credible, they’re detailed, and they don’t apply to AION 2. With this topic, the contamination of search results can be proven directly, not just suspected.
Trap one: the search engine itself gives this answer. For a query about flying in AION 2, Google quotes a page about the 2009 game in its related questions box, with a sentence saying you get wings at level 10. The first page of results also includes a wiki for the original game describing ascension at level 9.
Trap two: even a text that claims to be about AION 2 can be contaminated. The commercial guide “Aion 2 Flying Walkthrough” from May 2026 gives level 10 and points to flight rings in the Altgard and Verteron regions. But those are the starting regions of the original game, and AION 2 starts elsewhere. So a current article borrowed half its facts from a seventeen-year-old game.
Trap three: the phrase “aion wings” belongs to another game. The top result there is the Guild Wars 1 wiki and its “/Aion” emote, an NCsoft cross-promotion from 2009. If you search with this phrase, you’ll get more links to sellers of old emote codes than to wings in AION 2.
The telltale sign is simple: if a text talks about flight zones, level 9 or 10, or Altgard and Verteron, it’s about the 2009 game. A full comparison of both games, including what else has changed, is in our article AION Classic vs AION 2.
Will flying be the same in the global version?
It’s certain that you’ll be able to fly in the global version, and fly freely. That doesn’t come from the Korean version but directly from NCSOFT’s official press release and the game’s Steam description, which mentions countless outfits, mounts and wings to collect. Those are global materials, not Asian ones.
The specific values are uncertain. Wing rarity tiers, flight energy behavior, the number of sets and enhancement up to +10 all come from the Korean and Taiwanese version. NCSOFT hasn’t said anywhere what content the global servers will launch with, and the developer account’s pre-launch FAQ on Steam doesn’t address the topic either.
The dates, on the other hand, are confirmed: early access starts on 30 September 2026 and is only for Founder’s Pack owners, and the full free-to-play launch for everyone is on 5 October 2026. What the packs contain and whether they’re worth it is covered in our article on early access and Founder’s Packs.
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FAQ
Practically, yes. On the scope of flying, NCSOFT states “full aerial freedom in every region”, unlike the original AION, where you could only fly in designated zones. There are exceptions, though: flying is forbidden in part of the Abyss, and players move around by gliding on air currents.
By ascending to Daeva: Elyos at level 5, Asmodians at level 6. Until then your character can’t fly at all, and wings aren’t part of your gear from the start. If you came across level 9 or 10, that was information from the original 2009 AION, which search engines still spread as the answer to questions about AION 2.
It’s limited by the flight energy gauge, not by a fixed time limit. Its size is set by the Flight Power stat, which grows as you enhance your wings, so the answer changes as you play. We deliberately don’t give specific numbers in seconds here: every figure you can track down comes from sources about the original game, where the base was one minute.
Flying is active movement upward and sideways, and it uses flight energy. Gliding is a sloping descent that uses much less energy and is used for long-distance travel. Experienced players alternate the two (take off, glide, take off again) and get further than by flying straight.
They have stats. They can be enhanced up to +10 and, besides Flight Power (longer flight), they also give Attack Power, Defense and Accuracy. The cosmetic layer exists separately: according to the developers, paid options are purely visual, while the stats of the wings themselves are earned by playing. Monetization details are covered in our article on price and the cash shop.
No, and it’s one of the biggest differences between the two games. Flight zones are gone, wings come four levels earlier, and they’ve become enhanceable gear instead of an accessory. Underwater movement, which the original game didn’t have, has also been added. Both games are compared in our article AION Classic vs AION 2.
No. The global version is coming out exclusively on PC, via Steam and the PURPLE launcher. A mobile client exists only for the Korean and Taiwanese version, and consoles aren’t confirmed at all. The confusion is also fueled by the search engine’s knowledge panel, which shows the Asian version’s platforms for the game. Details are summed up in our article on platforms.
Flying is both the most visible and the most poorly documented mechanic in AION 2. Many of the numbers in this article come from the Korean and Taiwanese version, and after the global launch we’ll go through them again and add values verified directly in the global client. You’ll find our other guides in the AION 2 game guides section. Information verified as of 15 August 2026.