Since Ashes of Creation will be shutting down soon, purchasing the game right now might be a bad idea.

Ashes is officially cancelled. Now is the time to get steam to recognize this as a scam nad subsequent rug pull and to REQUEST A REFUND. Got to Help > Steam Support > AOC > Its not what i expected > Reason > Not in the list > Enter this :

"Intrepid, the company that created this game had to notify their company 60 days before dissolution via the WARN act that they did not have the funds to keep the game going. Intrepid will be officially dead as of February 2nd, 2026. This product was launched on Steam at a point in time where the WARN act notifications would have to have been implemented at Intrepid.

In order to circumvent the WARN act, Steven, the owner of the product, is deflecting governance to a non-existent board, pushing out the WARN act notifications to an official date of today, which would be fraudulent.

Intrepid scammed all players by launching this game on Steam to attempt to improve company liquidity. Steam, like the multiple purchasers of this product, was scammed. Please initiate the refund for this product."

Steam should offer instant refunds for products that come out in early access after years of development just to shut down in a month or two after this. More obvious scam and theft have not been seen in the history of gaming. DISGUSTING!

Steam needs to seriously investigate this further and hopefully refund anyone that purchased this through them in the past month. With the team "resigning" or being laid off by a board of directors that the community was told would never even exist because of how the game was funded, this reeks of fraud and lies. I know they have a typical strict policy for refunds - 2 hours or less game time played and no longer than 2 weeks after purchase, but there should be some exceptions to the rule. This should have never been allowed to be released on Steam.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. There is no future for Ashes of Creation now. The fact it's still listed on Steam to purchase is a bit concerning.

Steam support needs to issue refunds for everyone regardless of playtime.

paid 40 for a game that barely worked in beta and was then discontinued a couple months later with no chance at a refund. Literally a scam.

UPDATE:
Game's officialy dead. As of 1 Feb 2026 all Intrepid devs have been laid off.
I tried to warn you.

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I am one of the original Kickstarter backers from 2017 and I've been following the game closely for years. A fool and his money are easily parted, so I bought $100 Pioneer package and believed we'll finally get the WOW-killer.

Now, almost nine years later this game is 20% ready? Quests last for like 5 hours (I'm generous here, there are no quests after you reach level 8) and there's nothing to do outside of the pointless grind til level 25. Most core systems aren't working/aren't finished, PVP is forced and of course a fully functional cash shop is here.

Shame they forgot to grant me the cosmetics/mounts I bought back in 2017, but hey, I can buy more of them in the shop...:)

This steam release is the last cash grab, because they ran out ouf funds already. There were multiple posts about this, but game creators (Steven) keep banning people left and right for any criticism. If you'd like to know more, just look up some youtube vids about AoC situation.

Think 5 times before spending money on this game. It won't be ready before 2030, if ever.
Just go and play a real, polished MMO like GW2/WOW/FFXIV/OSRS instead.

BTW, I did NOT receive the game for free. That label is misleading and annoying.

Edit:

Glorious Ashes Community,

Thanks for all likes/upvotes. I'm glad that people who supported this game for years, like me, share the sentiment.

We all wanted this game to succeed, but it is what it is.

I'm especially loving comments calling me names, because "game is still in alpha" and I should cut devs some slack and give them more time to cook. Guess these people have forgotten that "alpha one" started in 2020.

Same with "your opinion is invalid, because you have 0.5h in game on Steam". Lol, as if this game was any different than before. It's exactly the game same as 3 months ago, or year ago. Many people played this game for 100s of hours, including their battle royale - Ashes of Creation Apocalypse.

Simply put, AoC is not good. Development is too slow. Soon we'll hit 10 year mark and game should've been ready for release years ago.

Just do yourself a favor before dropping money on it and do a simple google search. It should give you all the answers you need. Then you can decide for youself, if you want to invest in this "dream".

Unfortunately, Steam doesn't allow direct links, so you'd have to head over to reddit for more details, but here's the list of what was promised over the years and never delivered (credit to u/SanicExplosion).

Content missing:

3 biomes on the west
east continent (they said this will likely be cut)
underrealm
25+ content Quests, events, story arcs, mobs, world, dungeon and raid bosses, Caravans/ships variations and components
Tulnar race
Weapons
Node and guild wars variation

Systems missing:

Religion
Social orgs
Astrology
Monster Coin
Castle sieges
Housing, Freeholds, guild housing
Transmog
instancing (arenas, BGs, dungeons)
Augments
Story arcs
Bounty hunting
Accessory system (they sold cosmetics for this)
Dynamic boss difficulty

System components missing:

Level 5 node
election types
taverns
player shops
flight/caravan paths
node death, policies, node happiness, diplomacy, node trade routes, racial node aesthetic
Artisan skill trees, surveying pylons functionality, group gathering, animal husbandry, hunting, crafting modularity, gear ascension
Siege weapons
Caravan/mercenary progression path
party/raid voip
combat pets (they said this will likely be cut)
Racial background stats
parlor games

There's also a good youtube vid from Jay Oddity: Ashes Of Creation - Cultists Vs Reality that adresses AoC situation in more detail. It's 30 minutes long, but well worth your time. It'll allow you to save 50 bucks affer all.

Edit after News of Layoffs and possible closure: Guess I was correct, and that's why they banned all of us.

My wife and I have several hundred hours each in AoC, primarily during Alpha 2. The game's development is very slow, and quite far behind their current timetable, yet they continue to push forward in spite of players' concerns.

Two hours before this Steam release, the forum moderators deleted every single critical post about the game, many of which were from people that have paid hundreds/thousands of dollars to support the game. They also perma banned many people that were posting. I was banned for mentioning that they were deleting posts.

The concerns with the game are real. the scope of the game is far too great and there is no way this game will release in a "feature complete" state in the next 6-24 months. It will likely take them 3-5 more years.

I accepted all of this when I paid for both of our Alpha Keys. However, the response to criticism from the studio is extremely anti consumer and makes it EXTREMELY difficult to not think about all of the prior criticism. Their discord, forum, and Reddit all seem to be the same. I dare not mention any of this in game or on the forum/discord because I don't want my $100s of dollars to be taken from me because I dared to say something.

In my opinion, they were forced to release the game on steam to snatch up more sales and they are in full damage control mode. Maybe they are facing mounting legal backlash somewhere, who knows. I don't follow the studio, I follow the game.

Another PvX game that has intricate, highly grindy PvE content, but prefers to cater to the PvP crowd and allow them to freely murder you and reset hours of grinding so that you can be their 45 seconds of fun.
Do not believe the devs, like Steven, who claim to be against griefing. The main mechanic, Corruption, which is a punishment for players killing unwilling players who don't try to fight back, he has said fully "I am okay with friends killing each other to remove corruption and thus keep their gear."

No one gets banned for griefing. Bypassing corruption (red name) is fully allowed and considered not an exploit, so ask yourself a very serious question: How many PvE players will still exist after they get used and abused repeatedly? Who will keep the settlements running, who will spend hours gathering, processing, crafting, once the PvE players are gone? How many PvP players will still be around when there is no one left to kill other than the same 100 players?

This is just another darkfall. Another Linkrealms. Another PvX crapfest that refuses to add meaningful content for the PvPers or add serious anti-grief mechanics into a game to allow the actual PvE content to take place.
If you mostly like PvE, don't play.
If you like casual PvP, don't play.
If you like trolling and training mobs on other players and robbing their corpses? Do play, its considered abuse, but they wont ban you for it, because they are lying about that.
If you like spending hours grinding resources only to lose 25% of it in less than 30 seconds, do play.
If you like rubberbanding anytime largescale pvp happens between 30+ players, do play.
If you enjoy massive xp debt and never being able to level because pkers constantly harass you as you try to level, do play.
If you enjoy spending most your time trolling in global chat because theres nothing else to do in game so you sit around town, do play.

If you want a better game that doesn't have these problems... Check out Chrono Odyssey, it will likely release sooner than this game, but won't be hemmoraging players because they actually care about everyones happiness.

Dear Steam Support Team,

I am requesting a refund for Ashes of Creation due to extraordinary circumstances related to the sudden collapse of the developer, Intrepid Studios, as of February 1, 2026.

This is not a standard refund request based on gameplay preference or dissatisfaction, but a report of a broken promise and an effectively abandoned Early Access product.

Reason for this request:

Studio Closure
It has been widely reported that Intrepid Studios has ceased operations. Senior leadership has resigned, and the development team has been laid off, with WARN Act notices issued.

Abandoned Early Access Product
Ashes of Creation was sold as an Early Access title with the explicit promise of continued development and future delivery of core features. With the studio dissolving, development has permanently halted, and the advertised product will never be completed.

Loss of Product Viability
Without an active development team, the game’s servers are expected to shut down or become non-functional, rendering the product completely unplayable.

I respectfully ask Valve to treat this case similarly to previous precedents, such as The Day Before, where refunds were issued due to studio closure and false or unfulfilled advertising shortly after release.

Given these circumstances, I request a manual review of this purchase, as the product is now effectively defunct and no longer deliverable as sold.

Thank you for your time and consideration.