Ashes of Creation players finally have a way back into Verra. A free community project called Evolve Community Server has opened early playtests that let people who still have the game installed log back into the MMO, months after Intrepid Studios shut down earlier this year. The project is run by Spectre Games LLC, and it comes with a few big conditions for anyone who wants to jump in.
Evolve's official site describes the project as "rebuilding a playable world for people who already own Ashes of Creation," and says early testing is open now. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Intrepid Studios, and it makes no claim to the game's official code, assets, or services.
Who Is Behind Evolve
Spectre Games is not new to keeping an abandoned MMO running. The group has spent three years operating SWG Evolve, a community server for Star Wars Galaxies. Evolve's project page says that work covered modern client and rendering technology, Linux and macOS support, stronger infrastructure and account security, and reliable development practices, and that the team is bringing that experience to Ashes while expecting new challenges.
The goal is not to freeze the game exactly as it was when the lights went out. "Our goal is not to reproduce one exact moment in Ashes of Creation's development," the project page reads. The team says it is open to balance updates, quality of life improvements, progression changes, new systems, and reworked mechanics when they make the game better. Evolve is already adding some of its own content, including new quests, dialogue, and vendor lists delivered through a small patch file.
How To Join The Playtest
Getting in takes a few steps. Players need to create and verify an Evolve identity on the official site, download the Evolve Companion launcher, and point it at their own Ashes of Creation installation. The Companion is available as a signed installer for Windows 10 and 11 and as a native Linux app that runs the game through Proton, umu-launcher, or Wine.
Here is the catch. Evolve does not host, sell, or hand out the game client, and asking for it is against the rules. The FAQ says the server is meant for players who "legitimately purchased Ashes of Creation and retained their own game files," and it bans uploading, linking to, requesting, or offering copies of the client on its site or Discord. Anyone who deleted their install and cannot get it back is out of luck.
Sign-in is handled through the browser. The Companion opens aocevolve.com, players log in there with their Evolve identity and an authenticator if they have one turned on, and the Companion receives a short-lived, single-use launch ticket that it passes to the game. Evolve says the Companion never sees a player's password. Registration also checks for duplicate accounts, with questionable cases sent to human review and exceptions available for households and shared devices.
Expect Wipes For Now
Evolve's public roadmap is split into five phases. The community foundation is done, technical assessment and prototype services are ongoing, and the project is now in phase four, early testing. That phase is meant to validate gameplay, stability, security, and recovery, and the roadmap warns that "Characters, worlds, and progression may be wiped at any time during this phase as systems and balance change."
Progress from these tests is not expected to carry over. Once things are stable, the team plans to announce a fresh start server where everyone begins together, progression persists, and regular backups protect the world.
Built Without Intrepid's Code
The most interesting part of the project is how the server was made. Evolve's legal page says it does not have or use any of Intrepid's proprietary server source code, which means Intrepid's own backend, including the server meshing tech it spent years building, is not part of this. The server instead started as MMO technology Spectre Games had built for its own Unreal Engine projects, and it was then adapted to work with the Ashes client. The team says its research involved observing client behavior, analyzing network communications, and reviewing public and community research.
Evolve credits the Creation of Ashes team and community for a big piece of that research. Members of that group collected, cleaned, organized, and published a set of network packet captures and related materials, which Evolve says gave it useful reference information on how the client and server talked to each other.
Where Evolve Stands Legally
The legal page lays out the protections Spectre Games plans to rely on, including U.S. copyright law sections covering methods of operation, fair use, and reverse engineering for interoperability (17 U.S.C. 102(b), 107, and 1201(f)). The project charges nothing, sells no subscriptions or virtual items, and Spectre Games is covering the hosting costs itself. It only uses the Ashes of Creation name to identify what the server is designed to work with.
Evolve also describes itself as temporary. "Evolve Community Server is intended to provide temporary community access while official Ashes of Creation services remain unavailable," the page reads. Spectre Games says it is looking for an authorized path to keep running and will respect binding lawful decisions about who owns the Ashes of Creation IP, and it invites rights holders to contact the team through its support portal.
What Happened To Intrepid Studios
Ashes of Creation raised more than $3.2 million from nearly 20,000 backers on Kickstarter back in 2017, and it launched in Early Access on Steam last December. Just a couple of months later, the studio collapsed. A WARN notice filed in California in February described a permanent closure that cost 123 people their jobs. Co-founder Steven Sharif said in a Discord message that the board had begun "directing actions that I could not ethically agree with or carry out," and that he chose to resign in protest.
The fight over the game has been in court ever since. Sharif sued in federal court, and a sale of the Ashes of Creation IP and assets to TFE Games was later reversed, with everything returned to Intrepid. Back in August (August 27th), the court appointed a limited receiver to preserve Intrepid's intellectual property, monitor any foreclosure sale, and work out how much secured debt the company owes. With ownership still unsettled, Evolve is running in the gap until someone with the rights decides what happens next.
Are you digging up your old Ashes of Creation install to try Evolve, or are you waiting for the fresh start server before you get attached to a character again?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.