AION 2 opens Advanced Access on September 30 as ARK moves its engine upgrade to October 28

NCSOFT posted the Advanced Access schedule and server line-up. Each server holds one faction, and every Elyos server is paired with an Asmodian one for shared PvP spaces such as the Abyss.

• —Advanced Access runs from September 30 at 13:00 UTC to October 5 at 05:00 UTC, for Founder's Pack owners.
• —Maintenance follows from 05:00 to 13:00 UTC on October 5, then the global launch at 13:00 UTC.
• —Players pick a region, then a faction, then a server. Europe, NA East and Latin America open several servers; NA West and Asia one pair each.
• —Pre-downloaded files are encrypted and decrypt on September 30, which is not a reinstall.

The first cross-faction pairings are out: the Elyos and Asmodian servers you meet in the Abyss and Spacetime Rifts come from your matched server, and NCSOFT will reshuffle the pairings periodically to balance the factions.

• —Europe opens four pairs, starting with Siel against Israphel.
• —NA East and Latin America open two pairs each; NA West and Asia one.
• —Pairings change over time, so today's rival server is not permanent.

Community Crunch 525 confirms the September 30 creature drop and moves the Unreal Engine 5.8 upgrade to October 28, with a public test realm first.

• —Gargantar arrives on September 30 for ARK: Dragontopia owners, alongside Cerberax and the Therizinosaurus TLC.
• —The UE 5.8 test client opens on Steam on October 5; the full upgrade lands on all platforms on October 28.
• —Mod cooking servers go offline on October 5 for a recook, and modding reopens on October 28.
• —The Power Rangers premium mods leave the store after September 30.

GM Week runs from September 28 to October 2, with roaming GMs, password-protected loot containers found through a stream, and assets seized from banned accounts spilling out of abandoned Upwell structures.

• —Loot-stuffed Upwell structures in Yulai, Tarta, Emsar and Pakhshi go abandoned around 17:00 UTC on September 28 and around midnight UTC on October 2.
• —OnlyCans streams hide containers in space twice a day; the first player to reach one and solve its password wins it.
• —A lore pub quiz runs on Twitch on September 30 at 16:00 UTC.

Build 42.21 is now on the stable branch, after a week on the unstable beta. It targets zombie duplication and disappearing zombies, most visible on high-population servers.

• —Fixes zombies duplicating in multiplayer and vanishing when a player leaves and re-enters a chunk.
• —XXL trees cut away better for players in vehicles and no longer hide houses they overhang.
• —The loadstring and loadstream Lua methods, disabled in 42.20.4, are enabled again.

Patch 1.0.16 fixes terrain edits reverting in the Deep North and raids that spawned far too many enemies. It reaches every platform over a few days, and crossplay keeps working in the meantime.

• —Terrain modifications in the Deep North no longer revert after the area unloads; old seams may need a pickaxe, hoe or a walk over the snow.
• —Raids no longer spawn excessive enemies.
• —Deep North boss-fight spawns no longer appear outside the arena.

R48 Patch 1, deployed on September 28, is a stability patch: server and client crash fixes, and a fix for Blessings and Favors being lost after teleporting.

• —Blessings and Favors now survive teleporting and Petra Mea.
• —The Hidden Compass setting no longer hides the PvP indicator.
• —Fixes two server crashes, one in world streaming and one on discovering Fast Travel points.

Dev Blog 8 introduces the wildlife of Nasdara: the mouflon, the desert monitor lizard and, for the first time in DayZ, territorial dogs that guard fixed locations.

• —Packs of Dobermans and German Shepherds guard specific locations, mainly military zones, and attack anyone who enters.
• —The dogs cannot be tamed.
• —The desert monitor lives around the Dasht-e Sarman Desert and can be hunted for food.

The Community Development Team's progress report puts a Party System in the next update, with in-game hubs called Companies to follow.

• —A Party System arrives with the next update.
• —Companies, described as in-game hubs, are planned for the near future.
• —AAS, RAAS and Insurgency are under review for rework, and an experimental HOTAS build is coming.

Respawn restored the Core Wildcard mode alongside Apex KO last week and warns that queues in both run longer, worst in high-skill lobbies.

• —Core Wildcard is back beside Apex KO.
• —The longest successful queues run around 2.5 to 3.5 minutes, in the highest-skill lobbies.