Disillusioned by a genre quickly being overrun with increasingly stale reiterations of the same old, same old and in desperate need of ingenuity, it seems a ray of light might finally be breaking through the clouds and illuminating a savor in the stagnating MMORPG space. Ashes of Creation. A game that makes a lot of promises, shows a lot of potential, and has quickened the hearts of many an MMORPG fan.

What is Ashes of Creation?

Ashes of Creation is quite possibly the most ambitious MMORPG ever conceptualized. It hopes to be, essentially, the dream that all MMORPG veterans have had through multiple generations of the genre. A world truly shaped by player choice, where every adventurer’s path is unique, and no one server is the same.

Related: Ages Of Creation Release Date

Despite raising millions of dollars with their Kickstarter, the majority of the project is largely self-funded by Steven Sharif, the founder and CEO of Intrepid Studios developing the games. This is because he, just like you, is an unrepentant MMORPG nerd who had grown disillusioned with the trajectory of the genre.

Oversaturated with pay-to-win and autoplay, what started out as a genre full of promise, a genre that celebrated immersion and scope more than any other, has grown more prone to cheap gacha mechanics, hacky reskins of old titles, and lazy unattentive development than ever before. Thus Sharif, a successful businessman hitherto Intrepid Games, decided he would just bloody well do it himself and is supporting the lion’s share of the tens of millions of dollars that Ashes of Creation is projected to cost.

Ashes of Creation Races

Ashes of Creation will feature nine playable races at the start, grouped under four “parent” races of the familiar variety. None of the Archetypes and Classes are race or gender-locked, meaning that whatever your preferred playstyle, you need not worry about your choice of race impinging on any of your adventuring possibilities.

That said, your choice of race will have a real impact on your character’s growth. Race serves as the base stats for your character, with your choice of Primary Archetype determining how your stats grow. Secondary Archetype has no effect on stat growth. Your choice of race and primary archetype will account for about half of your character’s overall power.

The Aela

The Aela are the humans of Ashes of Creation, and will come in two different races: the Kaelar, whose proud and militaristic society is centered on the principles of law and order (something like the Imperials of Skyrim) and the Vaelune, a desert-borne society of traders and merchants that prefer to deal in coin rather than blood.

The Dünzenkell

The Dünzenkell are a pretty straightforward dwarf race, with the usual emphasis on smithing and crafting. In Ashes of Creation, they will come in two races: the Dünir, traditional mountain-loving dwarves and the Niküa, dwarves who prefer to travel the plains and forests of Verra than be cooped up in the frigid mountainous passes and lairs.

The Kaivek

The Kaivek are the Orcs of Ashes of Creation, and the two races are essentially a bifurcation of the two most saliently Orcish characteristics of their traditional portrayal. The Ren’Kai are contemplative warriors of immense physical strength who hold tribal loyalty and brotherhood sacred, while the Vek are a deeply spiritual race of Orcs in tune with the elements and brilliant scholars of numerology, astrology and prophecy.

The Pyrian

The Pyrian are, like the rest of the Ashes of Creation races, essentially a pretty traditional take on a familiar fantasy race — in this case Elves. The Empyrean are decidedly… imperial with a highly regimented society and are a dominant force in the world alongside the Kaelar, while their more wood-elf styled cousins, the Py’Rai are forest-dwellers.

The Tulnar

The most unique race of Ashes of Creation, the Tulnar are described as a corrupted, subterranean race that live as amalgamations of the other four races. Not much is known about their appearance or in what ways they might combine attributes of the other four.

Ashes of Creation Classes

In Ashes of Creation, players will be given the opportunity to choose one of eight”Archetypes.” These will look like the standard stock classes familiar to any longtime fan of RPGs. Where it gets really interesting is in the hybrid mechanic: after a certain point in development of your Primary Archetype, you will be able to choose another, Secondary Archetype to augment it — creating something completely new in the process. The combination of your Primary and Secondary Archetype are what create your Class, and any of the eight archetypes can be combined with the other seven, resulting in 64 possible Classes for players to eventually play as. NOTE: Unfortunately, the concept art for every Archetype isn’t available, but we’ll update it as the wiki grows alongside the game’s continued development.

Bard

Fighter

The Fighter appears to be a run-of-the-mill melee warrior. Whether it leans towards damage, CC, or a more well-rounded playstyle is yet to be seen with only a gap-closing CC skill up on the wiki. Unfortunately

Cleric

The Cleric is, as expected, primarily a support healer with some cleanses and light CC. This seems like one of the more developed classes at the moment with an extensive wiki article that goes into great detail about each of the skills.

Mage

The Mage archetype seems to be a traditional, garden-variety elemental DPS dealer. The class has a wide range of skills, leaning towards damage but with some movement and restorative spells as well.

Ranger

The ranger operates as a standard ranged sniper with a lot of disengages, damage buffs and some hard CC designed to make it elusive. Expect something like a glass cannon with the Ranger.

Rogue

Aside from serving as the squishy, burst damage assassin the rogue/thief characters often are in RPGs, the Rogue class will come with a variety of utility skills that will offer off-combat value to parties like finding secret doors, booby traps and hidden treasure.

Summoner

Summoners will, as their name suggests, be able to summon magical minions — but not in a Skyrim or Warcraft-style sense where the summon essentially becomes an AI companion. Like a League of Legends style transformation, Summoners will have their skills replaced with their Summon’s and essentially play through the Summon, allowing them to serve DPS, Tank, and Support roles selectively.

Tank

An integral component of any team comp across many genres, the Tank’s role is to serve as a damage soak for the party on the front lines. Like many other RPGs, Tanks in Ashes of Creation can use aggro-direction, defense and evasion buffs, and CC to mitigate damage for their party.

Ashes of Creation Classes Table

With much of the game still to be developed and a huge amount of changes inevitable, a lot remains to be seen in terms of final specifics for the whopping 64 playable classes planned for Ashes of Creation. That said, the rough outline is available, with some incredibly interesting concepts for each archetype hybrid. So keep your eyes peeled as further development is unveiled and we see more meat slapped on the rich skeleton Intrepid has created for itself with Ashes of Creation.

Are you as fired up as we are for Ashes of Creation? Do you think it can live up to its lofty potential? Let us know!