About
What AION Project is, why it exists, and every change it makes to the game.
Monsters, dungeons, quests and loot behave the way the original game did.
Content comes from the oldest version that has it, before later patches softened it.
1x rates, monsters with twice the health, and no distance leash to hide behind.
The shop sells cosmetics only, bought with coins you earn in dungeons.
AION Project is a private server built on a fork of Beyond Aion. Every piece of game data has been redone from the ground up — re-parsed, reworked, and modded. The goal was simple to state and enormous to actually do: bring back everything. Every version's content, nothing deleted and nothing nerfed.
The server starts on 1.0 and advances over time. That starting point is the current direction rather than a settled decision — feedback will shape it, and how far the versions eventually go hasn't been decided either. What is settled is how it advances: whatever version is live, it arrives whole, not a stripped-down or nerfed edition. Nothing from any prior version is ever removed to make room for the next.
Whole does not mean identical, though. Whatever version is live, it was never meant to be a faithful replica of that patch — this is my vision of how the game is meant to be played, drawing on every era where doing so makes it better. The authenticity is real, but so are the changes, and every one of them is listed further down this page.
I played for more than a decade. It was, and still is, my favorite game. I ranked among the top PvE players as a sorcerer on the European Urtem server. This project is my answer to what happened to that game.
Over the years, the original publisher slowly took it apart — nerfing what made it hard, deleting content that made it rich, and piling on unfair pay-to-win features that had nothing to do with the game.
Not a snapshot of one patch. Not a watered-down “classic” edition. The full game, restored and rebuilt to my own vision of it.
This took years to build, in whatever spare time I had. Every part of this project — from the reverse-engineering of the engine, the re-parsed data, to the dungeon redesigns — comes from the same place: a refusal to let a great game be remembered only as the worse thing it was turned into.
If any of that resonates with you, you already understand why this exists.
The full record
Every system restored, changed, added or removed, grouped by area and tagged so you can tell what is retail and what isn't.
What the tags mean
Server
The systems underneath, rebuilt to behave the way the original game did, from monster behavior to respawn timers.
Every monster and NPC follows its original behavior: skills, phases, shouts, summons, and when nearby allies join in.
Content comes from the earliest version that has it, mostly 3.9, 4.6 and 5.8 with a few things from 1.5, so later rebalancing never reaches it.
Tiamat's Fortress, the Sarpan dungeons, the Steel Rose and the other dungeons later patches deleted are back, and Reshanta keeps its 3.9 form.
The server opens maps, dungeons, the level cap and the campaign one game version at a time.
Every quest runs the way retail ran it, and each one is played through automatically from start to finish to catch broken steps.
Drop rolls, loot rights and corpse timers follow the 4.6 rules, without the cuts 5.8 made.
Monsters return on their original timers, counted from the moment the corpse disappears.
Spawns that pick one of several packs at random work as they did on retail.
Most gathering nodes give several harvests again, as they did before 5.8 cut them to one.
Full terrain collision data so the world is walked, blocked, and line-of-sight checked correctly.
Navigation meshes that let NPCs path intelligently around the real geometry.
Mobs and NPCs find their way to you instead of stalling on walls and ledges.
Server
Rooted in the original game and pushed further where it counts. No softened damage, no padded health, no handouts.
Normal monsters have twice their retail health, and from level 50 they also hit 50% harder.
Elites hit as hard and last as long as they did back in 1.5, from the starting zones to places like Eracus Temple, the Sky Temple and Alquimia Research Center.
Base enemy speed scales up by level bracket, keeping every tier dangerous.
Monsters chase as far as you run. A fight only resets after 30 seconds without an attack from either side, or 6 minutes in dungeons.
Several campaign steps no longer teleport you to the next objective. You make the journey yourself.
Server
Rebuilt on the original encounter scripting, with later nerfs reverted and a few fights pushed past anything retail asked.
Boss phases, spawn waves, doors, timers and run grades work as they did on retail.
Both dungeons' bosses keep their 5.6 skill values, from before 5.8 weakened them.
The Main Power Generator calls in three times as many Wave Generator Cores.
Brass-Eye Grogget's waves are twice the size, and he carpets the deck with bombs at two points in the fight.
The Master Workshop door only opens once all five Dredgion Generators are destroyed.
All five rune rooms can be picked at the Hidden Passage, each for its own number of keys.
Shugo Imperial Tomb, Trillonerk's Gold Vault and the other event dungeons match their monsters to your level.
Server
One map per mode, seven level brackets from 30 to 75, and the main arenas always open.
PvP instances queue in seven brackets from 30–40 to 66–75, with monsters and rewards scaled to each one.
Duplicate instances are merged into the first of their kind, like the Chantra and Terath Dredgions into the Dredgion, which keeps their rewards in its brackets.
Arenas, battlefields, the Dredgion and the Golden Crucible queue at any time of day.
Rifts open on the retail timetable and let in anyone above their minimum level.
Balaur Dredgions fly over the Abyss and Balaurea again and drop troops on fortresses under siege.
The top 100 players earn medals in three ranks, the losing side earns Glory Points, and the holding legion receives medals.
Only the sieges of the newest open game version pay Glory Points.
Kaldor keeps the 4.7 Anoha fight rather than the raid that replaced it.
Mercenary chiefs hire out their squads for Battle Medals again during the Kaldor siege.
The solo and party tournaments, with their lobby, brackets and rewards.
The 3-versus-3 mount race from 5.8, scored stage by stage.
Server
Earned the long way: original rates, skills from books, and gear that doesn't depend on luck.
Experience, drops, AP and kinah all run at 1x.
Class skills are learned from skill books sold by trainers, instead of arriving on their own as you level.
Type .noexp to stop gaining experience and stay at your level, while still earning everything else.
Push any profession all the way to master rank and craft top-tier gear.
Every piece of enchantable gear can go up to +15.
Stigma boxes give the standard stigmas of your class, never the old or limited versions.
Ancient-grade manastones available for gear above level 60.
Highdaeva-grade manastones available for gear above level 65.
Rangers hold arrows in the off-hand. Every bow shot spends one, and merchants sell them next to power shards.
Gear bought with Battle Medals or Ceranium Coins costs twice as many as on retail.
Ancient Coins, Crucible Insignia and Ceranium Coins can't be traded, mailed, sold on the broker or put in the account or legion warehouse: each character earns its own gear.
Create Elyos and Asmodian characters on the same account.
Candies keep their buffs but no longer change how you look.
Server
Cosmetics only, paid for with coins earned in dungeons, and achievements shared across your account.
Costumes, weapon skins, wings without stats, emotes, hairstyles and housing items found nowhere else in the game. Nothing sold affects combat.
The shop's currency drops from dungeon bosses. Older dungeons only pay out when the whole group is within their original level cap.
A merchant in Sanctum and Pandaemonium trades Iron to Mithril coins for potions, scrolls and food.
Account-wide achievements for quests, dungeon and world bosses, sieges and PvP, viewable in game and on this site.
Server
Systems that gated power behind luck or sold an advantage, vendors that bypassed progression, and shortcuts that skipped the world, gone for good.
No random reveal gate standing between you and the gear you already earned.
No tempering grind on accessories, and none of the inflated stats it added.
No enchanting past the cap, and no skills granted by amplified gear.
Gear can't be upgraded into a stronger item through purification.
No Idian polishes with their random bonus stats, and no Idian bundles in loot.
Enchant ceilings are no longer rolled at random per item.
Socket counts are fixed and fair, not left to chance.
The special-slot lottery layered onto sockets is removed.
Stigmas no longer carry a separate enchant grind.
No wrapping scrolls that make bound items tradable.
Removed P2W accessory slots that inflated health and power.
No rested-XP system quietly tuning your progression speed.
Abyss points can't be pulled back out of gear.
No minion system: contracts, Minionite and the minion quests are gone.
The NPCs that strip socketed manastones back out of gear are gone.
Power can't be bought outright with vendor coin gear.
Shortcut org-armor merchants removed so gear comes from play.
The 5.x corridors in Signia, Vengar and Akaron that led straight to older dungeons and landing sites are gone.
Client
The original client depacked, decrypted, and rebuilt — years of engine bugs fixed, the graphics and media pipelines hooked, and the restrictions that never belonged stripped out.
Direct3D 9 runs through Vulkan for smoother frame pacing and fewer stalls.
A performance page with engine optimizations, a better frame limiter and a VSync fix.
A larger vertex buffer budget ends the stray triangles and frame drops in busy places like Narakkalli.
The 64-bit client runs as it should, free of the old 32-bit memory ceiling.
Rebuilt on raw mouse input: no jitter, no cursor warping, and right-clicking a window no longer turns the view.
Misaligned interface and 2D textures finally render where they should.
The original startup intro plays again instead of being skipped or broken.
Room ambience stops when you leave, and zone music keeps playing during flight paths.
Taking a screenshot no longer freezes the game for a moment.
The intrusive third-party protection layer is stripped out entirely.
Connect and play from anywhere, with no region or address restrictions.
Leftover routing and region-specific data tables cleared from the client.
Client
Built into the client: voice chat, a combat meter, every language, and the web inside the game.
Group and alliance voice chat with push-to-talk, toggle or voice activation, and optional proximity audio.
Live damage, healing, damage taken and hate, with boss fights saved as logs.
11 languages in one client. Text, voices and cutscenes can each use a different one, set in the launcher or in game.
Runs at a smooth frame rate and opens the shop, your achievements and this website inside the game.
Cutscenes and local .bik files play in the client. Groups and alliances can also watch YouTube together: the leader types //video with a link or video id, and the video plays in sync on an in-game screen for everyone.
The console and the engine's settings are unlocked.
After a crash, you can choose to send a report that helps track the bug down.
Client
Switchable interface eras with a clean, modern layout — and the clutter, ads, and monetization hooks taken out of the menus.
Switch between the Tower of Eternity (1.5), Ascension (3.9) and Echoes of Eternity (5.8) interfaces, live in game.
The world map's fog of war and zone discovery are back, saved per character.
Gear tooltips use the single-page 4.7 layout, without the Alt pages or the combat strength score.
Pick NPC dialog options from the keyboard.
The quest journal's guide button is back, and every quest you can take is marked over its NPC and on the map, low-level ones included.
A reworked world map built to display all major maps.
A cleaner, more capable game-master interface.
Reworked boost controls that are easier to read and use.
The heavy menu backdrop is gone for a lighter look.
The Luna shop entry point is stripped from the UI.
No VIP status or account-tier prompts cluttering the screen.
An unused interface tab cleared away.
No one-click reward shortcut bypassing the quest flow.
Monetized bag-slot prompts pulled from the inventory.
A leftover interactive region in creation cleaned up.
Low-quality default appearance presets taken out.
Dead and dangling menu entries trimmed.
AION-Encdec is public today. The rest opens with the open-source release.
AION
The custom client binary, engine fixes, DXVK, hooks, 64-bit.
AION-Project
The server with every piece of game data re-parsed, reworked.
AION-Project.eu
This site, database, engine viewer, player info.
AION-Launcher
Downloads, verifies, and launches the client.
Depacks, decrypts, and repacks the game's archives.
IzFF
A cross-platform game asset tool. For AION it mounts the .pak archives and rebuilds whole levels as one engine-agnostic scene: saved as .iz files, exported to FBX, opened in Unreal Engine or Unity, or streamed to this site's engine viewer.
This is where the project stands today — and it keeps growing.
Download & Play