Ashes Of Creations And Intrepid Studios Shuts Down Today

 Over the weekend stories were published about the shut down of the crowdfunded MMORPG Ashes of Creations that launched as an Early Access game on Steam on 11 December 2025. 

As seen on Steam on 2 February 2026

The accusations are flying around that the game is a scam. Perhaps the game started off as an honest project. Honestly I haven't enough research into the history of the game to make that kind of determination. I do know that the Warn Act is a federal law that requires employers give 60 days written notice before closing a single site workplace with over 100 employees. 

To meet the requirements of the Warn Act, Intrepid Studios would have had to issued the written layoff notices by 3 December 2025, a full week before the game launched on Steam as an early access title. 

Part of the story doesn't sound right. According to PCGamesN Intrepid Studios founder Steven Sharif made a post on Discord that didn't exactly clear up matters in my mind.

Not long after this, Sharif shared a short post to the game's Discord, seemingly confirming the reported layoffs. "I can make a limited statement in my personal capacity and not on behalf of the company, regarding the situation." He claims that "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," Sharif claims. "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.

When did the leadership resignations occur? Just from the sound of the statement I would guess before the game launched on Steam. And with this limited knowledge I would not blame anyone for believing the Steam launch indeed was a last gasp for one last money grap before Ashes of Creation jointed the rest of the games that never reached a commercial release.

Ashes Of Creation Alpha 2 Begins Today

I really didn't anticipate doing any coverage of Ashes of Creation. The game is still in an alpha state and probably 5 or more years away from a commercial release. But then a crazy thing happened. Tiny indie studio Intrepid Games stumbled into a tech war with the giant, 1000+ employee Cloud Imperium Games, developers of the upcoming Squadron 42 and Star Citizen. The technology? Dynamic server meshing. And since how Ashes of Creation performs can affect the finances of CIG due to the comparisons of each game's technology, I feel I need to at least do a little coverage.

The Alpha 2 testing of Ashes of Creation starts today for selected people. The full testing calendar describes a rollout lasting 7 months.

• 25 October 2024 - For players who attained Alpha Two access via a giveaway, or Kickstarter Pack, Kickstarter Addon, Pre-order Pack, and Pre-order Addon.
  
  
• 8 November 2024 - For those who purchased a First Wave Bundle.
  
  
• 20 December 2024 - For those who purchased a Second Wave Bundle.
  
  
• 1 May 2025 - For those who purchased a Third Wave Bundle.

The wave bundles are a bit controversial. Charging to test a video game? Yet, people are willing to pay for the privilege. The bundles are:

• First Wave - $120. Sales of the bundle end 1 November 2024.
• Second Wave - $110. Sales of the bundle end December 2024.
• Third Wave - $100. Sales of the bundle end 27 May 2025.

Each bundle comes with Alpha Two, Beta One, and Beta Two access, 1 Month of Subscription Time ($15 value), and $15 in Embers, the in-game currency. Remember when I mentioned 5 or more years until commercial release in the introduction? Intrepid is planning two rounds of open beta testing before launch.

The testing also feels more like the alpha testing I've seem from CCP Games in their player testing of EVE Vanguard and EVE Frontier. We are 7 months away from 24/7 testing of AoC. The schedule for how long servers are available for testing is below.

• On Friday, October 25, 2024 Alpha Two begins. Phase I of this testing phase will be weekend testing that starts on Fridays and ends on Sundays.
  
  
• On Friday, December 20, 2024 we will move to Phase II of this testing phase which will be periods of testing for 5+ days in a row.
  
  
• On Thursday, May 1, 2025 we will move to Phase III of this testing phase which will be testing that is up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with downtime for game updates.
  
  
• Note: Dates are subject to change due to development, but Intrepid will notify testers of schedule changes in advance.

One thing I think changed is that the Alpha 2 playtesting is not under an NDA. At least, a quick look at Twitch gives that impression. The NDA for the testing before Alpha 2 was lifted a few days ago. 

The allowance of streaming the Alpha 2 could lead to embarrassment for other developers, primarily Cloud Imperium Games. CIG's CitizenCon presented a vision of Star Citizen highly reliant on the ability to mesh servers together. If Intrepid shows the ability to have massive PvP fights with tech developed faster and with far less people than CIG, I can see a lot of sniping at Intrepid from Star Citizen white knights looking to defend their game by tearing another game down.

Which brings me back to the concept of the server meshing wars. People will defend their game on the claim that their favorite game studio is developing cutting edge technology. What that does to funding for the various games is something to watch for the future of crowdfunded gaming projects.

Will Throne And Liberty End A Cloud Imperium Narrative?

For those who haven't kept up on the news, NCSoft's new MMORPG, Throne and Liberty, is launching as a free-to-play game in the West though Amazon Games. While the global launch is on 1 October, the game launched in Korea back in December 2023. When I asked Copilot about the game's unique features, the first two items stuck out to me.

Throne and Liberty offers several unique features that set it apart from other MMORPGs:

1. Guild-Based Combat: Engage in epic battles against dozens to thousands of players and fantastic creatures in group battles and massive Castle Sieges¹².
   
   
2. Dynamic World: The game features a vast, seamless, and ever-changing world with towering cliffs, cavernous dungeons, and consequential day/night cycles that impact gameplay and abilities¹².

Sources: (1) The Official THRONE AND LIBERTY Website. (2) THRONE AND LIBERTY | Xbox. 

Castle Sieges sounded interesting so I asked specifically about the PvP feature.

Castle Sieges in Throne and Liberty are large-scale PvP events where guilds and alliances compete to control castles. Here are some key aspects:

Objectives

• Attackers: Their goal is to breach the castle defenses and seize control of the throne room.
• Defenders: They must protect the castle and repel the attackers¹.

Mechanics

• Siege Weapons: Both sides can use siege weapons like Golems and Gigantrite to gain an advantage¹.
• Hidden Entry Points: Attackers can use hidden entry points to infiltrate the castle¹.
• Respawn Points: Strategic respawn points are available to both attackers and defenders to keep the battle dynamic¹.

Strategy

• Coordination: Successful sieges require tight coordination and strategy among guild members.
• Tactics: Utilizing the environment, siege weapons, and morphing abilities can turn the tide of battle¹.

Rewards

• Victory: Winning a siege grants control of the castle, which can provide various in-game benefits and resources¹.

Sources: (1) Castle Siege War PVP Event Guide - Throne and Liberty - Maxroll.gg. https://maxroll.gg/throne-and-liberty/events/castle-siege-guide.

Although I'm a PvE player, I play games with large-scale PvP. So how big are Castle Sieges? In an interview with PcGamesN, Amazon globalization design manager Daniel Lafuente indicated in Korea the game had successfully supported a 1700 character fight. I managed to find a video of a 2300 character fight supposedly verified by NCSoft and another claiming over 3000 participants. I've included the hyperlinks for those wishing to see what large fights in Throne and Liberty look like.

I've also watched some quick reviews which indicate the server performance on the global servers now accessible during the current early access period is fast enough that few if any loading screens appear.

Back in July I wrote about the server meshing wars we would see emerge between Cloud Imperium, makers of Star Citizen, and Intrepid Studio's Ashes of Creation in October. Star Citizen even published a self-congratulatory video about how their success in developing server meshing technology.

One of the CIG developers even stated, "I don't think we could have done this anywhere else. Nowhere else would have the patience to really develop this kind of tech on the promise of something that might happen." Another opined, "I don't think there is another game company on the planet that can do what we're doing. We can take risk to produce amazing technologies that other game companies simply can't take. I'm pretty convinced that this couldn't be done anywhere else."

And that is where Throne and Liberty comes into the picture. NCSoft is using Unreal Engine 4 to create EVE-sized PvP experiences. Not the mega battles that set records, but still 2,000 character fights is nothing to sneeze at. Ashes of Creation is also touting its ability to also support large scale fights and seamless open-world experiences using their proprietary game engine built around Unreal Engine 5. The Alpha 2 tests will utilize what sounds very close to what CIG calls dynamic server meshing as Intrepid already uses a static server mesh for its game worlds. As for Star Citizen, CIG's CryEngine-based Star Engine is struggling to support 500 players in current testing.

And this is where the Cloud Imperium narrative goes off the tracks. I've heard so many Star Citizen content creators parrot the CIG line that CIG is not only at the leading edge of the tech to make large-scale virtual worlds possible, but the only ones who think doing so is worthwhile. And yet, here is NCSoft producing a game that currently vastly outperforms the server capacity of Star Citizen. Even worse for the narrative, Intrepid Studios is also working on the problem using Unreal Engine 5, the technological successor to UE4. 

Meanwhile, CIG is stuck using a customized version of CryEngine, which gaming companies have abandoned in favor of UE5. Perhaps for single-player games like Squadron 42 the Star Engine will work wonderfully. But as for massively multi-player games, CIG may have chosen to follow a technological dead end.

The Server Meshing Wars Have Begun

Any discussion about large-scale player-versus-player fights in an MMO eventually includes EVE Online. The title from CCP Games not only holds world records for largest fight in a video game (8825 players), but most concurrent participants in a multiplayer video game PvP battle (6557) as well. Any game offering EVE-sized battles will attract players just out of curiosity.  Currently two companies, Cloud Imperium Games and Intrepid Studios, are working on a technology they believe will put them in the conversation of games capable of hosting large-scale battles.

The technology is called dynamic server meshing. Both Cloud Imperium Games and Intrepid Studios published videos last week proclaiming their progress on the technology. But before diving into the videos, I perhaps should explain what server meshing and dynamic server meshing mean in the real world.

I turned to Copilot to summarize the technology as my backend server infrastructure knowledge is from ten years ago. First I asked: What is server meshing?

Server meshing is a technology that allows multiple servers to connect together and work seamlessly as if they were a single large server. This technology is used to overcome the limitations of a single server’s capacity.

Here’s how it works:

• The system divides the workload among multiple servers, each handling a different part of the game world or application.
• These servers are interconnected in a “mesh” network, where each server is connected to every other server.
• This allows for efficient communication and data exchange between servers.
• When a user moves from one part of the game world (or application) to another, the responsibility for that user is transferred from one server to another.
• This transfer is done seamlessly, without the user noticing any interruption or delay.

I then wanted to know about dynamic server meshing and what the dynamic part of the term meant.

Dynamic server meshing is an advanced form of server meshing technology used in video games and other large-scale online applications.

Here’s how it works:

• Unlike static server meshing where servers are pre-allocated and cannot be changed, dynamic server meshing allows servers to be dynamically moved as needed.
• It allows for dynamic scaling of servers based on player movements, optimizing server resources in high-population areas and reducing costs in less populated regions.
• The technology also enables servers to stream in and out as needed, potentially shutting down unused servers to save resources.
• In the context of video games, this means that different parts of a game world can be hosted by different servers, and these servers can be dynamically adjusted based on the number of players in each part of the world.

All links, at least according to Copilot, lead to CIG and its MMO under development, Star Citizen. What led to this article was the company posting a documentary-style video about server meshing and CIG's pursuit of the technology. The video concludes with a statement about how the developers will deploy static server meshing to the Persistent Universe in Alpha 4.0 and the conditions in which the company will proceed with the development of dynamic server meshing. I liked the video for the history, but for a 13 minute explanation of CIG's version of the technology, I turned to a well-respected YouTube creator, Space Tomato.

If Alpha 4.0 does indeed launch during the current quarter, it likely will conflict with Intrepid Studio's release of its Alpha 2 test for Ashes of Creation. During a 3 July broadcast, the company revealed plans to introduce dynamic server meshing in the upcoming test. Following the link leads to the video embed on the Ashes of Creation website. Tech nerds should definitely watch the video. But for those who don't have 75 minutes, I found the below 13 minute video by Narc, a long time Ashes of Creation YouTube creator, an excellent watch.

What I found most interesting in the video was the comparison of the tech in Ashes of Creation with that in Star Citizen and World of Warcraft.

I've addressed the topic of server meshing from this post's title, but where does the concept of war come into play? While the games exist in different genre (science fiction vs fantasy) they have three things in common. First, both games are PvP titles. The second is both are crowd funded, with the Star Citizen Kickstarter raising $2.1 million in 2012 and the Ashes of Creation Kickstarter bringing in $3.2 million in 2016. The final similarity is both are much delayed from the estimated dates of delivery given on their respective Kickstarter campaign pages.

How delayed? Star Citizen famously gave an estimated deliver date of November 2014. Missing a delivery date by 10 years and counting is quite a feat. But Intrepid Studio, with an estimated deliver date for Ashes of Creation of December 2018 isn't that far behind.

And now we get to the matter of content drops. Both Star Citizen's Alpha 4.0 and Ashes of Creation's Alpha 2 were both expected to launch sometime in the third quarter of 2024. With the announcement of Alpha 3.24 last month, I no longer expect Alpha 4.0 and server meshing to launch in 2024. I expect CIG to launch Alpha 3.24 in the weeks leading up to CitizenCon on 19-20 October.

Intrepid Studio, on the other hand, has an incentive to launch its Alpha 2 in October instead of during the third quarter. The next World of Warcraft expansion, The War Within, is scheduled to launch on 26 August. Perhaps more importantly, Throne and Liberty, a game more comparable to Ashes, should launch on 17 September. The Intrepid Studio leadership might want to delay the launch of Alpha 2 to mid-October not only avoid completing with either title, but take advantage of the extra development time.

In the end, does all the fuss and commotion over server meshing really mean anything? For Intrepid Studio, I think so. The company's story will change from a company making a vaporware game to one that took the time to not only upgrade Ashes' engine from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, but also develop a solution allowing for massive fights where a much bigger company with even more financial resources failed. As for Cloud Imperium Games, they still have Squadron 42 to launch next year. The launch should make up for any decrease in Star Citizen related sales. And for the rest of us, lots of Star Citizen white knights telling us how we should think about the entire situation.