[UPDATE #2 - February 14, 2026] One of the main investors behind Ashes of Creation has publicly shared serious accusations against Intrepid Studios founder and CEO Steven Sharif. Discover all the shocking details of this testimony here.
[UPDATE - February 3, 2026] Website MMORPG.com has corroborated claims previously made by YouTuber KiraTV about what really happened to Ashes of Creation behind the scenes. The report says developer Intrepid Studios was sold to a private equity firm; the original plan was to lay off most of the 250 employees while keeping around 70 as a 'skeleton team', but the new owners ultimately decided to lay off everyone. Worryingly, it appears that payments for payroll, PTO, bonuses and severance benefits are not being made to workers.
[ORIGINAL STORY] Fantasy MMORPG Ashes of Creation, developed by Intrepid Studios, has suddenly imploded: with several key members already resigned and mass layoffs incoming, the game's future seems dead. A few hours ago, people started noticing that many employees had changed their LinkedIn status to 'open for work', including Director of Communications and Marketing Margaret Krohn, who only hinted at the circumstances in a LinkedIn blog post:
As for how this all ended… I don’t really have the words. It wasn’t what I expected. But I’m holding onto the good because there was so much of it.
More information came to light when finally founder, CEO, and Creative Director Steven Sharif shared the following message in the official Ashes of Creation Discord channel:
I can make a limited statement in my personal capacity and not on behalf of the company, regarding the situation. Control of the company shifted away from me, and the Board began directing actions that I could not ethically agree with or carry out. As a result, I chose to resign in protest rather than lend my name or authority to decisions I could not ethically support. Following my resignation, much of the senior leadership team resigned. Following those departures, the Board made the decision to issue WARN Act notices and proceed with a mass layoff.
I cannot responsibly speak to further details at this time due to ongoing legal and governance matters. What I can say is that the developers and staff acted in good faith and deserved better than the uncertainty they are now facing. I am incredibly dismayed by the situation.
Sharif says in his statement that the Board made decisions that he did not feel comfortable carrying out. However, according to public records from the State of California, the Board includes only him (as CEO and Secretary) and his husband, John Moore, who is listed as Chief Financial Officer.
Originally announced in 2016, Ashes of Creation was funded on Kickstarter the following year, earning over $3.2 million in pledges. Intrepid Studios then continued selling pre-release access to the game for a long time, and it did not take long for some users to warn that it could be a scam, especially because of the founder's past in the shady world of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM). However, the development team posted regular updates, and the game did seem to be progressing, albeit very slowly. In late 2021, the studio switched from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5.
Eventually, last month, Intrepid made the decision to launch the MMORPG on Steam Early Access while it was still technically in Alpha. It was a controversial decision, especially because Sharif maintained that the game just needed more feedback from a wider player base, while funding was supposedly not an issue, as Sharif would contribute his own money, as he had from the start.
However, due to the game's blatantly incomplete state, reception to Ashes of Creation on Steam was 'Mixed'. User reviews, both recent and total, sit at 51% right now. According to SteamDB, the MMO only reached a concurrent player peak of 31.8K at launch and has dwindled ever since. Overall, sales estimates range between 220K and 320K units. This means the game earned between $11 and $16 million on Steam, although with Valve's 30% cut, the money that actually went to Intrepid ranges between $7.7 and $11.2 million.
There's one last tidbit that dismayed backers have pointed out: in the original Kickstarter campaign, Intrepid had promised to refund all backers in full if the game did not launch. But it did launch, and people are wondering whether that wasn't simply a way to 'fulfill' that promise (which, however, was not legally binding).
Whatever the case, it's yet another blow to a genre that was already flailing after several high-profile closures, including Amazon's New World and its in-development new The Lord of the Rings MMO. Speaking to Wccftech, two industry veterans, Greg Street and Jack Emmert, who also recently had their new MMOs cancelled after NetEase pulled funding from their studios, pointed to Warframe as the best model for Western developers looking to create an MMO-like experience: start small and slowly expand.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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