[Global] Game closes without any error after Start Game

I’m trying to figure out whether anyone else had this exact issue during the Global Launch Scale Test and, more importantly, whether anyone actually managed to fix it.

The Global client is completely stable as long as I stay in the lobby. I can sit on the region, server and character-selection screens indefinitely without a crash.

The moment I press Start Game, one of these happens:

• The game closes during the loading screen
• It closes during the opening cutscene
• I get into the world, but it closes within 0–30 seconds
• On my best attempt, I moved around and used a few skills for about 15 seconds before it suddenly closed

There is no error message, crash window or error code. The game just disappears.

I monitored the process and Aion2.exe exits with status 1 / 0x00000001. Event Viewer shows no AION 2 application crash, GPU-driver crash, LiveKernelEvent or WHEA error.

The NC crash breadcrumb sometimes gets as far as:

Flow.SelectCharacterInLobby.LoadComplete.Map(110001) Tutorial.Tutorial_Start Flow.SelectCharacterInLobby.Ingame 

Then it simply ends. The latest NCGuard logs also contain no obvious detection, blocked application or violation.

I tried both the Steam and PURPLE versions of the Global client and they behaved exactly the same.

Things I already tried:

• Verifying/repairing the files through Steam
• Completely reinstalling through PURPLE
• Deleting the AION 2 Local AppData configuration
• Clearing NVIDIA and game shader caches
• Clean-installing the NVIDIA driver
• Installing the latest AMD chipset drivers
• Installing both x64 and x86 Visual C++ runtimes
• Disabling overlays
• Disabling G-Sync/FreeSync
• Testing with only one 1080p monitor
• Testing with a mobile hotspot
• Disabling all non-Microsoft services and startup applications
• Disabling ASUS, SteelSeries, NextDNS and other background services
• Testing after a full Windows reset using Cloud Download

After the Windows reset, I reproduced the issue with basically only Windows, the required drivers, PURPLE and AION 2 installed.

Here is the strange part:

I installed the Taiwan version of AION 2 on the exact same PC, and it works perfectly. I can enter the world and play normally without any of the crashes that happened with the Global client.

At this point, I’m wondering whether this was a Global-build/NCGuard problem, a Windows 11 25H2 compatibility issue, or something happening during the Global login-to-world handoff.

Did anyone else have this exact issue?

I have already submitted this information to NC Support, but I’m trying to find more people with the same behavior so we can identify the common factor.