"If Ashes of Creation launched fully today, it would already feel outdated, which is a problem considering its full release is nowhere in sight."
Ashes of Creation would have been my dream game in 2017. Unfortunately, the better part of a decade later, I just cannot make myself interested in a very dated MMORPG that intends to charge a monthly subscription for what is essentially a worse version of better games, many of which have already failed or are on their last legs.
This is due to market changes which have seen the MMORPG genre undergo massive shifts, with even large titles such as New World, which saw over 900,000 concurrent users at launch, being forced to close just a few years later as casual players migrated to other genres, while MMORPG veterans remained loyal to the games they have been enjoying for, in some cases, over 20 years.
With such a long journey still ahead of it, and the MMORPG genre having very little room for new subscription-based games, especially when many MMORPGs have shifted to free-to-play business models, it leaves me with little hope that Ashes of Creation will do more than die a spectacular death when it finally launches.
Players will either quit en masse when they are forced to subscribe, or the developers will find the few thousand loyalists who remain subbed nowhere near enough to support ongoing development, resulting in Ashes of Creation falling even further behind in a genre whose community has been burned so many times before that the willingness to trust a new MMORPG, given the time and monetary commitment required to excel, is at an all-time low, and in the case of Ashes, likely a fatal one.
I am not saying this to be cruel, as I know the developers have put a lot of work into Ashes of Creation, but after so long, I expected to be wowed, or at the very least impressed by what they had accomplished, and that simply did not happen. To be honest, after spending some time playing Ashes of Creation, it just feels like a very generic mid-2010s Western MMORPG with dated visuals and ugly character models.
I play a lot of games, and I pre-order a lot of games, and I rarely regret my purchases. With few exceptions, such as Biomutant ↪, I nearly always feel like I had my money’s worth, or at least fun equivalent to the purchase cost. And yet after playing Ashes of Creation, my first thought was, “I wish I had never backed this.”
It is just so generic and uninspired, and the knowledge that I would be expected to pay even more to play it once it launches, when so many better options exist, both free and paid, has robbed me of what little desire I had left to continue playing.
Do I feel they should offer refunds to all backers who want one? No, I do not. I bought it of my own free will, and while I wish I had not done so, they have started to deliver what they promised, even if it is many years later than I anticipated, and with full launch still years away.
I feel any attempt by the community to force refunds would be catastrophic, and a near sinful lack of grace. I personally know that in my own life I have made mistakes and have appreciated being shown mercy.
Intrepid Studios may have overpromised and underdelivered, or rather taken far too long to deliver, but I do not believe they intended to deceive anyone. I would rather show them grace, the kind of grace that costs me $40 to $50, than allow that loss to make me bitter and resentful, and risk my own soul in the process.
Ashes of Creation is a early access massively multiplayer online role playing game developed and published by Intrepid Studios, it released on 11 December 2025, and is available exclusively on PC.
Ashes of Creation supports the following peripherals:
Ashes of Creation is unrated and contains:
Ashes of Creation is not a bad game, but it is a painfully generic one. With such a long journey still ahead of it, I simply cannot bring myself to recommend it at this time when there are so many better options on the market.
Maybe my opinion will change if and when it finishes its journey, and if there is a change in business model, but for now, I cannot in good conscience recommend a game that is fundamentally less enjoyable and worse looking than many similar titles in the MMORPG genre, such as the excellent buy-to-play MMORPG Black Desert, which often goes on sale for as little as 99 cents, is visually stunning, impressively active, and enjoys all the benefits of being established titles with solid content pipelines and dedicated communities.
These are things Ashes of Creation simply does not have, and is unlikely to acquire any time soon, especially with the looming requirement of a monthly subscription fee and future wipes hanging over the community like an executioner’s axe.
We found Ashes of Creation to be a mediocre game, meaning that while it has some redeeming qualities, it's held back by noticeable flaws that prevent it from being truly enjoyable.
Note: This title is in Early Access, meaning it is publicly available but still evolving. The rating shown reflects its current state and may change as development continues.
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