The Ashes of Creation developers from Intrepid Studios seem to have finally buried the project under a pile of fraud allegations. Investor Jason Karamanis revealed shocking details in a recent interview with the Caspar YouTube channel – studio head Steven Sharif, apparently, could have embezzled more than $140 million raised for development.
The situation looks like a classic execution of trust.
About $115 million came through Kickstarter and early access sales, the rest is private equity. Karamanis himself invested $12.5 million, and his fellow pensioners gave the last $2 million. Another major player, Robert Dawson, actually “poured” $80 million into the project.
The promised board of directors was never created.
Instead of development reports, Stephen Sharif and CFO John Moore wrote out salaries of $500,000 each year. Investors are confident that part of the funds was spent on the purchase of a luxury estate. By 2024, the studio was spending $2.5 million a month on a ridiculous income of $150-200 thousand. As a result, Intrepid Studios accumulated a debt of $852 thousand to Google Cloud, which left the developers without bonuses.
By the way, the finale came quickly.
Ashes of Creation, which was teased back in 2016, was released on Steam Early Access in December 2025 at a price of ₽1600. But in January 2026, the project was removed from the store, and the studio itself simply ceased to exist.
That’s how the story of the most anticipated long-term construction ended.
