NCsoft and the German gaming publisher Gameforged have partnered up to bring European players a Free-to-Play version of Aion staring in February 2012.
The switch will introduce three new account types, Free, Veteran and Gold. Free will obviously have the most restrictions, but even the Veteran plan will have some slight restrictions. You can view the plan comparison at the Aion plan page.
As the title says this change only effects EU players, so North American gamers will continue to pay a monthy subscription cost, although I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes F2P later on in 2012.
You can view the Aion Free-to-Play announcement trailer below.