Last night’s news about the Ashes of Creation situation—Steven Sharif’s resignation and the board-driven mass layoffs—is a middle finger to a community that spent a decade being told this project was the one. It’s enraging. We built this site for people who are tired of getting their time wasted. Intrepid Studios just pulled off the ultimate time waste.
The Kickstarter Loophole: Was This Shutdown Planned All Along?
The Kickstarter campaign included a specific promise:
“And finally, in the case that Ashes of Creation does NOT launch, we promise to refund all backers in full.”
Backers held onto this as insurance for years. Then came the sudden Steam Early Access launch in December 2025—what critics called a rebranded alpha. It looks calculated. By launching on Steam, the studio can argue in court that the game launched. Check the box, dodge the refund obligation, and kill the legal requirement to return millions raised since 2017.
This early access move destroyed what trust remained. If the Ashes of Creation shutdown happens now, weeks after hitting Steam, backers don’t know where they stand legally. That launch “fulfilled” a promise on paper right before the studio imploded.
Why Intrepid Studios Collapsed
Here’s what led to the Ashes of Creation shutdown:
- The Sudden Exit: Founder Steven Sharif resigned on January 31, 2026, in protest over what he called unethical board directives. When the person who is the brand jumps ship, the vessel’s already at the bottom.
- The Mass Layoff: After Sharif left, the Board issued WARN Act notices and gutted the team of over 200 developers.
- The Timeline: This game has been “coming soon” since 2016. We sat through engine changes and endless development updates for a game stuck in a high-priced alpha for almost a decade.
The Genre-Wide Damage
The Ashes of Creation shutdown poisons the well for every indie developer grinding away in a home office. This collapse confirms what players feared: we’re not funding a game, we’re funding a developer’s education. We pay for the lessons they learn while failing. We pay for the overhead while they pivot through engine changes and mismanagement.
1. Paying for the Learning Curve
The community is done being venture capital for projects that treat development like a decade-long hobby. When you back a project like this, your money goes toward “figuring it out” instead of execution. The Ashes of Creation shutdown proves that developer incompetence—even with millions in the bank—leaves fans holding the bag.
2. Hope as a Weapon
For years, the project sold limited-time cosmetics and alpha access tiers that cost more than a mid-range gaming PC. People bought in because they believed in the savior of the genre. Instead, they funded a slow-motion car crash. This creates a permanent trust gap. Players now assume any limited digital item in an unreleased MMO is a high-res funeral souvenir.
3. Community Betrayal
Thousands of fans spent years in Discord channels arguing about node mechanics and over-analyzing patch notes. Community energy is what we value at PX2S. Seeing it weaponized against fans is the worst kind of betrayal. Players are losing the home they built around a promise that was never meant to be kept.
4. The Cynicism Legacy
The MMO community now has a hard-earned shell of cynicism. When the next ambitious title drops a cinematic trailer, the comments will ask about board transparency and refund policies. Intrepid Studios didn’t just fail to launch. They taught a generation of gamers that backing a dream usually ends in a nightmare.
TL;DR (For The Skippers)
If you spent money on Verra, you got scammed. If you spent years defending this in Discord rants, you got played. We started Press X to Skip because we were tired of getting our time wasted. Intrepid Studios just wasted ten years of it. Press X to skip the excuses—the dream is dead. We’re moving on to games that actually exist.
