“Control of the company shifted away from me, and the Board began directing actions that I could not ethically agree with or carry out,” wrote Sharif on the Ashes of Creation Discord server (via PCGamesN). “As a result, I chose to resign in protest rather than lend my name or authority to decisions I could not ethically support. Following my resignation, much of the senior leadership resigned. Following those departures, the Board made the decision to issue WARN Act notices and proceed with a mass layoff.”

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) act is a US labor law that requires a company with a hundred or more employees to provide an advance notice of 60 days for mass lay-offs.

“I cannot responsibly speak to further details at this time due to ongoing legal and governance matters. What I can say is that the developers and staff acted in good faith and deserved better than the uncertainty that they are now facing. I am incredibly dismayed at the situation.”

In her LinkedIn post, Krohn thanked the Ashes of Creation community for its support of the MMO’s long development cycle. “To the Ashes of Creation community – you are some of the most passionate, dedicated players I’ve ever seen in this industry. I genuinely wish I could have done more for you. I gave everything I had, and did my very best with what was within my power,” she wrote. The inciting incident was noted as one she didn’t see coming either. “As for how this all ended… I don’t really have the words. It wasn’t what I expected. But I’m holding onto the good because there was so much of it,” she wrote.

Players that might have already picked up an Early Access copy of Ashes of Creation and are looking for refunds will be glad to know that Steam is seemingly already investigating the issue. As caught by one such player on Reddit, requesting a refund through Steam led to a response that indicated that Valve was “aware of the issue” already.

“Sorry to hear about this issue and I understand your concern,” wrote a Steam customer support representative. “We are aware of the issue and are currently investigating this further.”

These sudden departures have led to quite a few negative Steam reviews for Ashes of Creation, with the current average sitting at “Mostly Negative”. Many of these believe that the MMO might be shutting its servers down. In the meantime, however, the remaining team at Intrepid Studios has published its own “Director’s Letter”, where it said that development plans for the game will be discussed through a Twitch livestream on February 13, 11AM PST.

Among the subjects to be discussed are performance and stability problems, content and system bugs, issues surrounding caravans, crates, and risk-versus-reward gameplay, PvP and corruption items, and the impact of real-money trading, bots and cheating.

Senua’ Saga: Hellblade 2

Developer Ninja Theory delivered one of the best single-player experiences of recent memory in the form of 2017’s Hellblade: Senua’s Saga which masterfully tells the tale of Senua – a patient of psychosis. Its follow-up, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is showing a similar promise, although the protagonist looks much more prepared to face the larger-than-life threats that lie in her way. Ninja Theory’s latest trailer highlights some great utilization of Epic’s latest technology, with impressive cloth physics, spot-on facial capture, volumetric lighting, photogrammetry, and so much more. Of course, the dark and dreary art style is the driving factor for this impressive visual presentation, but having a strong engine to work with definitely eases things up to an extent. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is currently in development for Xbox Series consoles and PC with an unconfirmed release date at this point.

Star Citizen

Star Citizen is going to be amazing…when it’s finally done. Imagine a huge open universe to explore with large space ships (which you can captain), first person shooter levels with zero gravity, unique planets with their own culture and laws and of course, the freedom to do whatever. That’s not even taking the single-player component Squadron 42 into account which boasts hours of story and features high profile actors like Mark Hamill and Gillian Anderson.

Intrepid Studios’ crowd-funded MMORPG Ashes of Creation has received some new gameplay footage that showcases the overworld, dungeons, the UnderRealm and the growth of a village node. It’s a pre-alpha build but still looks fairly interesting. Check it out below.

The most interesting part is the node system, which can create various challenges as it expands (like the village that must be defended from monsters). The node system is essentially the more strategic aspect of the game as it will be influenced by the player’s actions and provide new facilities as you level up. This creates a stronger attachment to the world and even lets the player engage in politics, conflict and other aspects of culture within the node.

Ashes of Creation still doesn’t have a release date but it’s expected to into beta testing later this year for PC. Though a lot of work remains to be done, it’s currently shaping up rather well and can’t wait for more information.