Aion 2's Hardest Sanctuary 'Snowfield of Sorrow' First-Cleared in 4 Hours 16 Minutes on Day One

The Snowfield of Sorrow Sanctuary opened with the September 9 maintenance in Korea, and the first Hard clear came at 14:16 KST — about 4 hours 16 minutes after servers came back at 10:00 KST.

That beat the developers' own forecast: during the September 8 preview livestream they had expected the first clear to take 5-6 hours. The 10-player clear group is recorded in the new Hall of Fame with the clear date and roster.

NCsoft's first-clear event rewards the first 20 forces that clear Hard: 1st place gets the 'Golden Void' pet and the title 'The First to Break the Sword of Extreme Cold and Chill', forces 2-5 get the 'Silver Void' pet, and forces 6-20 get the 'Bronze Void' pet.

With first place now decided, the remaining Silver and Bronze Void rewards are still being contested by the forces racing through the raid.

The update adds a Hall of Fame that enshrines the 1st through 3rd forces to clear the dungeon, showing the clear date and the full attack-force roster.

That makes the record permanent and verifiable server-wide — a fixture for the raiding community and a reference point for the raid's ongoing meta.

The raid scales its entry requirement by difficulty: 5,800 for Easy, 6,000 for Normal, and 6,200 for Hard — the highest PvE content bar in the game so far.

A day-one Hard clear at that bar says a lot about how prepared the top Korean forces are, and it sets the expected item level for the global endgame curve.

The same livestream that previewed the raid also outlined upcoming Chapter 1 content: the 'Temple of Fire' expedition trial dungeon for item level 4,800+ players, and an auto-tuning feature for Soul Engraving that repeats until the target option is obtained.

For global players, treat this race as a preview of the raiding cadence to expect: the October 5 launch ships a modified Season 1, and the content model confirmed earlier keeps Korea ahead by roughly three-month seasons.