"This has been heartbreaking" – laid-off Ashes Of Creation devs won't get final paychecks and compensation, says former comms head

Ashes Of Creation developers laid off during the reported closure of Intrepid Studios will not receive their final paychecks and other compensation they’re due, according to one of the departing team members.

Posting on LinkedIn, former director of communications Margaret Krohn has written a longer account of this week’s job losses, beginning with the comment that “Intrepid Studios has shut down in a way that I did not expect.”

Krohn writes that she was informed by people up the ladder that Intrepid would lay off 100 people on 28th January. The next day, Krohn shared this info in secrecy with her Game Services team. “I told them that changes were coming, that I did not yet know who would be affected, and that I wished I had more certainty to offer,” she recalls. “I could not live with myself if I did not give them advance notice – these are people who deserve to be treated like human beings.”

On January 30th, having gotten confirmation of who would be affected, Krohn spoke individually with members of her team. “Those who were staying began working on ways to move forward,” she continues. “Even those who knew they would be leaving offered their support”.

But then, on 31st January, staffers received a “confusing email that we would be laid off, along with a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification] notice.” Despite the WARN notice, Krohn says that “none of us are receiving our final paychecks, the 60 days notice and pay outlined under the WARN Act, PTO payouts, or other compensation owed”.

You can read about the WARN act on the US government website. According to an accompanying brochure, an employee who qualifies for protection under the act “must receive a written notice 60 days before the date of a mass layoff or plant closing” and is otherwise entitled “to seek damages for back pay and benefits for up to 60 days, depending on how many days’ notice you actually received”.

Krohn has a few words for players of Ashes Of Creation, writing that “the entire development team was working extremely hard, pulling long hours, and wishes with all our hearts that we could give you Ashes of Creation. There are no words that fully express how sorry we are that this journey ended this way. You should pursue a refund, you deserve it.”

There’s ambiguity about whether Ashes Of Creation players are in a position to seek refunds. According to the original 2017 Kickstarter pitch, backers were entitled to one if the game never made it to release. The game did come out in Steam early access this December, attracting mixed reactions. There’s a lot of speculation that Intrepid rushed out an unfinished version simply to avoid that Kickstarter refund provision.

Other players are suspicious of creative director Steven Sharif, who left the company shortly before the mass layoffs, after allegedly disagreeing with Intrepid’s board. It’s not clear who Intrepid’s board members are (I’ve made a few enquiries), and some players have pounced on the fact that only Sharif and his husband are listed as company officers in a California state filing from December 2025. Is Sharif blaming his own mishandling of Intrepid on a fantasy board? The counterargument there is that the document in question doesn’t require companies to list every board member.

Krohn has addressed some of these claims on Reddit, with the caveat that “I was just the person running marketing, communications, social, CS, etc. I had departments that I was focused on. I was not privy to senior C-level leadership information.” Regarding Sharif, she writes that “[f]rom my experience, Steven was always kind, generous, and looked out for us. This has been heartbreaking.”

Following the layoff reports, Steam quietly removed Ashes Of Creation from sale. I’ll ask what remains of Intrepid for comment on Krohn’s allegations about final pay and notice periods. Best of luck to the devs affected.