Intrepid Studios, developer of Ashes of Creation, lays off all employees! – Game News

Ashes of Creationa new MMORPG that launched in Early Access on Steam after years of development, has closed.

The studio’s development team has completely collapsed, with the entire staff “apparently” fired completely. Just a few days ago, Intrepid Studios was still releasing “patches” as well as sharing information about the content release roadmap in the near future.

In a recently posted article on the game’s official Discord channel, Intrepid Studios founder Steven Sharif shared a few words about the company’s current situation. Specifically, he emphasized that he was… forced to resign after “control of the company” was transferred from him.

This led to a strike and caused the entire staff to be fired!

“I can only make a limited statement as an individual, and not on behalf of the company, about the current situation.

Control of the company passed from my hands, and the board began to direct actions that I could not ethically agree with or carry out. Therefore, I chose to resign in protest, rather than allow my name or power to be used for decisions that I cannot ethically support.

After I resigned, most of the senior leadership team followed in my footsteps. The board of directors then decided to issue a notice under the WARN law and conduct mass layoffs.

I cannot elaborate further at this time due to ongoing legal and administrative issues. What I can say is that the developers and staff acted in good faith and deserve better than the uncertainty they are facing.

I am extremely disappointed in this situation.”

On the community page on Steam, many users call Ashes of Creation is a “pump and dump” scam. There are even some people who think Intrepid Studios should be sued to refund gamers.

In a post shared on Twitter, the studio’s internal video shows that “all titles and positions” will be cut and the entire company will be permanently closed.

In addition, the video also states that the salary payment scheduled for February 1 will no longer be made due to the company’s current financial situation.

In other words, any employee who receives a layoff notice under the WARN law will not receive their wages. In particular, failure to pay wages could lead to employees filing a class action lawsuit later.

Furthermore, it seems that many gamers also want a refund after realizing it Ashes of Creation will not be further developed.

On the product’s Steam page, Intrepid Studios still allows people to buy the game at a price of 49.99 USD. Based on information from SteamDB, the game has had about 319,000 buyers since its launch on Steam.

When calculated, the amount of money that Intrepid Studios has earned is around 14 million USD.

Normally when a game makes such a big “scam”, consumers will pursue it to the end to get a refund. This means that similar to not paying employees, there is a possibility that the players will take a class action lawsuit later.

Things didn’t stop there, things changed dramatically after eagle-eyed users online discovered extremely important information. Specifically, in Intrepid Studios’ registration informationthe only member of the company’s board of directors is… Steven Sharif.

This information is taken from the application submitted on December 30, 2025. In it, the documents show that Steven Sharif takes on the role of CEO and another person named John Moore is the company’s CFO.

With Sharif being the only member of the company’s board of directors, this also means… he was not being honest when he said the board of directors “forced him to do things that his conscience did not allow”.

Additionally, many individuals discovered another disturbing piece of information. On the page Kickstarter belong to Ashes of CreationIntrepid Studios said it will refund all players if the game does not launch on Steam.

Since the game has been posted on Steam, it is likely that the company will use this reason to argue against possible future lawsuits.