Elyos or Asmodian — which faction?

In AION 2 your faction is not a cosmetic allegiance — it is your server. NCSOFT published this on 4 June 2025 in six words: "Separate servers for Elyos and Asmodians to improve faction balance". That makes the choice structural: it decides who you can play with, which region you level in, and it is the hardest decision in the game to reverse, because no transfer policy has been published.

The split was announced as a balance measure on 4 June 2025. Since then the publisher has softened its consequences twice on the Korean service without undoing it. On 23 February 2026 it introduced Abyss of Chaos, "a new matching format that allows faction-independent battles such as Elyos vs. Elyos and Asmodians vs. Asmodians", and lifted all server creation restrictions. On 25 March 2026 came Chaotic Abyss, where "players are divided into West and East forces at the server level, engaging in large-scale battles regardless of race alignment".

The two factions now have their own regions, added on 6 July 2026: Morheim for the Asmodians, Eltnen for the Elyos, each arriving "alongside Sealed Dungeons, Strongholds, and Monoliths where players can earn rewards needed for progression". So the choice determines which region you progress through, not only which side you fight for. What NCSOFT has not published: whether both factions can exist on one account, and whether any transfer between servers or factions is possible. This site does not assume either.

The mistake is choosing on appearance or lore and assuming you can move later. Nothing published says you can. The right way to decide: pick the faction your friends pick, because the servers are separate and that is the only consequence you cannot work around. And do not choose based on which side you expect to be outnumbered — since February 2026 the Korean service allows same-faction Abyss battles precisely so that imbalance stops mattering. What applies at the Western launch of 30 September 2026 has not been announced.