Ashes of Creation is one of the most ambitious and expensive MMORPGs of the foreseeable future, especially considering projects from the West. At the same time, the developers are aiming for a very specific target audience. Can this work out well?
How expensive is Ashes of Creation? Steven Sharif founded the studio Intrepid 10 years ago. In 2017, they raised nearly $3.3 million through Kickstarter for the development of Ashes of Creation. Revenue from the sale of pre-order packages and alpha access has been coming in for years – interested parties sometimes had to invest more than $500 for that.
By now, they have added an early access on Steam to the alpha running through their own launcher. Currently priced just over 40 euros, these accesses are relatively inexpensive compared to previous alpha prices, but still an investment in the future of the online role-playing game.
This financial support is sorely needed. Since 2022, more than 200 people have been working on the MMORPG. Currently, the number is said to be around 250 employees. The weekly (!) operating costs are said to be $800,000 according to Steven Sharif.
After the release, Ashes of Creation is supposed to be financially supported through a monthly subscription. There are no plans for a purchase price or additional monetization through a shop or battle pass, for example. Since the beta is supposed to start sometime in 2026 and there is still no date for the release, it could take more than a year before the subscription is activated. Maybe even one and a half or two years.
Expensive as a blockbuster, but not for the mainstream
What is the danger? A development of nearly 10 years. A team of 250 employees. Operating costs per week amounting to $800,000. Ashes of Creation is a blockbuster project with an AAA budget. And regarding the ambitions in terms of the size of the world, the complexity of the node system, or the genre-revolutionizing technological framework, that also fits.
At the same time, Steven Sharif has from the beginning planned to develop an MMORPG for a very specific target audience, and the team has stuck to this vision to this day. The pillars of Ashes of Creation include:
- Ashes of Creation relies on a sandbox framework that hardly guides players. You must set your own goals and decide for yourself which content you want to tackle to reach the maximum level and contribute to the progress in the world.
- PvP is an essential part in the world of Ashes of Creation. If you die, you can even lose part of your loot. If you want to avoid PvP at all costs, many of the key features of the MMORPG will be off-limits to you. This includes important PvE content such as the new Harbinger events, which often possess a PvP component despite their cooperative nature.
- If you want to get the most out of Ashes of Creation, master all content, and succeed in PvP, you must necessarily join a community. As a solo player, you can only have fun in Verra if you aim for much smaller goals. And then Ashes of Creation often feels tedious.
- AoC focuses on an old-school MMORPG experience with a large world, long travel times, and a high grind factor. Many players are currently leveling in the early access version by grouping at certain locations and farming mobs there for hours. This is reminiscent of classics like Dark Age of Camelot.
With the strong focus on PvP and sandbox, they often only appeal to a rather small target audience in the MMORPG sector. Many of today’s genre fans grew up with online role-playing games like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, or The Elder Scrolls Online. They often wish for a colorful theme park of content, high convenience, a focus on PvE, and purely optional PvP.
The last MMORPG blockbuster of its kind?
New World’s PvP and sandbox plan fell apart during a test phase. The loud feedback forced the developers to change their concept, but there was too little time to ensure varied quests, an enjoyable leveling phase, and well-interlocking systems. This misstep ultimately leads to the early death of New World.
That there are relatively few MMORPG fans in the West who are eager for PvP and sandbox has also been noted in other regions of the world. According to Sangtae Yoon (Executive Producer of Chrono Odyssey), internal numbers show that only about 5 to 10 percent of all players would prefer PvP content. The absolute majority prefers PvE.
This explains why upcoming MMORPGs like Aion 2 and ArcheAge Chronicles are distancing themselves from the roots of their predecessors and also want to focus much more on PvE, the story experience, and content for soloists or small groups.
Ashes of Creation goes against this trend and currently alienates many genre fans who have invested a little more than 40 euros to take a first look at the MMORPG. The only 49 percent positive reviews on Steam underline this. This is, despite blockbuster budget, not a game for the mainstream, but for a quite niche target audience.
Can this daring mix work? As a genre fan who has been playing MMORPGs of all kinds with great joy for 20 years, I hope so. Especially since there are very few online role-playing games from the West with ambitions and big budgets.
However, I fear that a difficult year lies ahead for Intrepid and that someone will have to make unpleasant compromises in the end. Either because the developers need to create additional revenue streams (and may therefore bring forward the subscription), or because too few new testers are entering early access.
Or because at some point an unfinished product will go live, as there is no more money for further months of development. That would probably be the beginning of the end of Steven Sharif’s dream.
When Ashes of Creation is finally released and can excite the target audience, a mandatory monthly subscription should be able to finance further support. However, I cannot imagine that this will still allow a team of 250 employees to be paid … I expect at the latest then the unfortunately common layoffs in the industry. But one must first reach that point, which I find difficult enough. What do you think about this?
The majority of current MMORPG projects with budget and ambitions come from Asia. However, to achieve sustainable success here in the West, they must stop making the same mistakes over and over again or insisting on their peculiarities. You can read more about it here: 5 mistakes that MMORPGs from Asia must avoid if they want to succeed with us
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