Ashes of Creation Studio Shuts Down Days After Early Access Launch

Ashes of Creation is a new MMORPG that had an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2017. Intrepid Studios, the developer, advertised Ashes of Creation as an open-world, non-faction based, no pay to win, high-fantasy MMORPG. They claimed this was going to be a rebirth of the MMORPG genre. And people believed in the vision. 19,576 people pledged more than $3 million to fund Ashes of Creation.

Ashes of Creation launched in early access on Steam back in December last year. However, on the last day of January 2026, the creative director and studio co-founder Steven Sharif resigned from Intrepid. This was a snowball effect as the senior design team also resigned then the rest of the studio employees faced mass layoffs. 

Then, it turned out that Intrepid Studios had been shut down January 31st via Margaret Krohn, the head of marketing at Intrepid. Krohn shared a timeline overview of events on twitter. On January 28th, she was informed 100 employees would be laid off. The following day, January 29th, she got confirmation of which people on her team would be impacted.

On January 30th, Krohn and the team that was left came together to work on moving forward. Then, January 31st, the whole studio was told that everyone would be laid off through an email that came attached with a WARN notice. 

Krohn has stated that none of the team members have gotten their final paychecks, the 60 days notice and pay outlined under the WARN Act, PTO payouts, or other payments. Now it’s left unclear whether or not Intrepid exists at all, what will happen to Ashes of Creation, or how the Kickstarter backers will be able to get refunds.

So what exactly happened? Clearly the community had supported Ashes of Creation and truly believed in the vision. Let’s go through Ashes of Creation’s weird timeline.

Intrepid Studios had announced the game in December 2016, ten years ago. The Kickstarter raised more than the original end goal of $750,000 by $2,450,000. In 2018, Intrepid Studios made a deal with My.com, a publishing company, to distribute Ashes in EU and CIS regions. 

Intrepid Studios then released Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse, a standalone battle royale, in December 2018 that was free to play. Apocalypse stayed online until March 2020. In December 2021, Intrepid Studios announced it would be moving from Unreal Engine 4 to 5 right after it had held an alpha test in August that year.

Then last year in December, Ashes of Creation was made available on Steam as an alpha test to mostly negative reviews. It’s odd that on January 29th, two days before the studio closure, Intrepid Studios posted an update on their channels that players would be getting a Q1 plan outline on February 13th. This update does not mention anything about studio troubles but rather a very vague look at gameplay fixes they would be implementing.

January 31st, Krohn posted about her experience and what the studio was going through. Shortly after news went viral about Intrepid Studios seemingly shutting down, director Steven Sharif, posted a message to the Ashes of Creation Discord server.

 "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."

There has yet to be a statement made by Intrepid Studios, or whoever is left (if there are survivors), but Ashes of Creation is no longer playable or downloadable on Steam, but that aforementioned development update livestream still set forFebruary 13th. We’ll just have to wait for the next few days to see what will happen and whether or not Intrepid has actually been shut down or not.

 "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."

There has yet to be a statement made by Intrepid Studios, or whoever is left (if there are survivors), but Ashes of Creation is no longer playable or downloadable on Steam, but that aforementioned development update livestream still set for February 13th. We’ll just have to wait for the next few days to see what will happen and whether or not Intrepid has actually been shut down or not.