For many, this past week brought a new experience in testing Ashes of Creation as it officially moved from Phase 2 to Phase 3 of their Alpha 2 testing. For some it brought disappointment as the game has failed to live up to its hype. For me, it brought new information that Intrepid Studios has been less than forthright with their disclosures about the game.
My Saturday stream started like many others, and was the best stream I have had to date. That is no surprise, I once used Ashes of Creation as the cornerstone of my content creation. While I wandered around in the new Anvils region, many old friends popped into the stream but one brought with him information I had not been previously privy to.
That information, was a concerning post, from a game developer Discord where John “The Digital Alchemist" Waynick had posted back in February about Ashes of Creation starting their full production in the beginning of 2021.
A quick LinkedIn search reveals John Waynick (using the same photo) claims credits for working at Intrepid Studios from May 2022 through February 2025. In February of this year Level 80 published a story (which I condemned as bush league journalism), about 13 developers who were terminated under at-will employment. This does lend some credibility to the post, however, it leaves room for speculation as Waynick was not at the Studio from January 2021 through May of 2022 so he may not be the best candidate to say they started over.. Still, an individual with at least 13 credible years in video game development is more likely rather than less likely to be a judge of what was occurring or what had occurred even in the years prior to his onboarding.
This post, levies some serious accusations against both Intrepid Studios and Creative Director Steven Sharif, as there is no publicly available information or disclosure that the time period leading up to 2021 was “prototypes + R&D”.
In fact, Sharif and other members of the Intrepid Studios team have been adamant that the production has been going along steadily since 2016. In fact, the only thing that the team has said was scrapped was a portion of the back end after their testing environment Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse revealed some engineering areas that needed improvement.
Going all the way back to 7 March 2019 Sharif confirmed “Not the "whole" but a core component of the backend needed refactoring” proving that Sharif has a track record of disclosing when critical parts of the game need complete rework.
It does warrant attention, however, that Sharif does not exactly have a penchant for honesty. “Once again, the MMORPG is on schedule and they are meeting all their milestones” were his exact words on 6 December 2018 during a Discord Q&A. During this time, the company line was that a “before 2020” launch was still something he did not foresee changing.
If scrapping all development prior to 2021 and starting over on Unreal Engine 5 was an isolated incident, it might be difficult to overlook, but a dedicated and diehard fan might be able to do so. This incident was not the first time Intrepid has said something, or failed to say something, relevant to the product's development.
Staff Size Issues going back to almost the beginning
Going back all the way to the time period between August and December of 2018, there was once a question posed to Steven about how many developers were actively working on Ashes of Creation. The answer given was 115, however, that number wasn’t exactly accurate. While there were 115 people “working” on Ashes of Creation, only 52 of them were employed by Intrepid Studios in San Diego.
The remaining 63, split between were employed by Streamline Media, an art studio out of Malaysia. Streamline Media for the historical record is the company that was forced to sue Intrepid Studios in the amount of $241,500 for services rendered. The remaining 28 were employed by Stormmancer, a 3rd party engineering company that provides backend support solutions for Intrepid.
While this might not seem like a big deal, it was the first in a series of instances when the number of employees working on the project as stated by Intrepid has not lined up with public records detailing the number of employees or positions at the company, most notably their payroll protection loans.
As of 15 April 2019, Steven himself stated “just over 60” people were working on Ashes of Creation employed by Intrepid Studios in San Diego and then also people who “worked remotely”.
Between 16 April 2019 and 27 April 2020 Intrepid on several occasions would inform the community that staff members were added to the team including 16 July 2019 where they added at least five staff members and 1 April 2020 where they added an undisclosed number of staff. At that point, the math would seem to indicate Intrepid Studios would be at over 75 and potentially up to 80 staff members, and yet when Intrepid applied for its first Coronavirus Payroll Protection Plan, they reported only 52 jobs.
Later that year on 18 October 2020 Seven would disclose the number to be at 87, and yet on 18 February 2021 they would file a payroll protection plan to only protect 82 jobs, despite claiming that they added on an additional 2 positions in the first week of January 2021 for a total of 89 individuals supposedly working on Ashes of Creation.
Are seven positions anything to be concerned about? Probably not. It is very likely Steven Sharif (Creative Director) John Moore (CEO and Chief Financial Officer), and a few other principal players were not on payroll so there was no need to take steps to protect their positions. It does beg the question though, why are the numbers only sometimes close to being accurate and actually reflective of the staff size?
From 18 February 2021 through 14 January 2022 Intrepid would report increasing their staff size to 120. While a 34% increase in staffing would not be unheard of, until this point in their history Intrepid had not successfully onboarded, and retained, that many people in a single year.
As recently as 7 March 2025 Intrepid is claiming over 250 employees now working on Ashes of Creation, but is that a number that should be accepted given the number of times proof indicates otherwise? Does that 250 number accurately reflect the 13 individuals who were terminated at will in February of 2025?
While there can be something said about the need to “fake it till you make it” overstating the number of people working on a project, an important question must be asked. Why? In 2019 Intrepid Studios was still the belle of the ball, they had no reason to lie about staff numbers. Without a doubt it is a questionable decision to claim the workers at third party vendors as part of your worker count. Do those workers work exclusively on your project, or are they working on a host of other projects while developing solutions for your particular project?
Would it change your perception if you knew the actual truth behind the staff numbers? The staff numbers arne’t the only issue with the staff, it also includes a key member of the staff who seemingly never was.
The Economy Designer who never was - Dr. Rocco Scandizzo
Anyone who has been playing Ashes of Creation in Alpha 2 Phase 3, is aware of many of the economic problems plaguing the game. In fact, it seems as if Intrepid has no direction in terms of economic direction, artisan systems, mobs drops and how to bring all these things into harmony. Intrepid has been searching for a replacement for their Lead Economy Designer for some time now, but early on in the company’s history, circa June 2017, they claimed Dr. Rocco Sandizzo was joining them as their Lead Economic Designer.
Interestingly, Dr. Scandizzo makes no claim of working at Intrepid Studios or on Ashes of Creation in his LinkedIn Profile. Instead, from June 2014 through November 2017 he was the Managing Director and an Executive Producer at Psyop, and in January 2018 he joined Skybound Entertainment as an Executive Producer. It seems odd that the announcement was made that he was joining the team in June of 2017 and yet he continued on at Psyop. Even more strange, is that no mention of his not joining the team was ever made to the community who was left believing Rocco was joining the team and working on the economy behind the scenes.
Nodes Part 3 - “What’s he talking about?”
Although there are many other points that could be brought up about Intrepid, we shall end on the infamous Nodes Part 3. To take a stroll down memory lane, Nodes Part 1 & 2 were well received by the community. So much so that the community was begging for part 3 of the 4 part series. Often a laughing point for never arriving, it was said during a Pax Panel that Trystan Snodgrass was back the studio working on Nodes Part 3. For the full effect of this, you will need to check out the video that accompanies this piece, but there was an occasion where, in my editorial opinion, Steven was laughing at the community during a livestream.
“The community often asks where Nodes 3 is at” and then among laughs he says “I was like Trystan is back at the studio and he’s editing” to which Trystan replies “I remember that and I was like yeah, what’s he talking about?”
This incident, for some people, was the last straw in a series of let-downs from a rookie studio that is now 5 years, 8 months and 4 days late on their promise of “before 2020.” For others, it was business as usual dealing with Intrepid Studios.
On 30 August at 2:33 Pacific Time, Steven Sharif was given an opportunity to respond to the image at the beginning of the story. As publication was 4 September at 6 am Pacific, and there was no response from Steven Sharif, Margaret Krohn, or anyone else at Intrepid Studios, it is safe to say they have refused to respond.
Does having these four incidents lined up neatly in a row change your perspective of Intrepid Studios? Are you still dedicated to the project? Is your confidence in their ability to deliver shaken? Or did you give up on Ashes of Creation long ago?
Sources
15 April 2019 Interview: (Just over 60) https://youtu.be/Ep5Dsglari8?si=dve6ckbLdIwWn27h&t=355
18 October 2020 interview (87 Staff) https://youtu.be/ZOV_puvaIvU?si=3F5S7xtJGvUWf1cs&t=3438
16 July 2019 (at least 5 staff) https://ashesofcreation.com/news/creative-director%27s-letter-july-2019
6 December 2018 Discord QnA https://ashespost.com/12-06-18-discord-qna