Cradle of Ash
Co-op survival horror in a quarantined company town where the dead get back up unless you burn them, with a mode in which other players hunt you as demons.
Links go to the official store or developer page. Last verified Nov 7, 2026.
Steam content notes: frequent, graphic violence against human and human-like figures (dismemberment, burning bodies, blood and gore); the game deals with pregnancy, infant death and medical abuse and depicts corpses and children in danger, with sustained psychological horror, loud sudden sounds and flashing light and fire effects. Steam lists generated age ratings of 16 in Germany and 14 in Brazil. (Steam)
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- View on SteamSteamReleased$9.99
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Desktop · Steam
About Cradle of Ash
Cradle of Ash is a co-op survival horror game for Windows. Every run puts four survivors into Ashbrook, a company town sealed off behind a chemical-spill quarantine: up to four players can take the seats, and any empty seat is filled by a computer-controlled companion who fights alongside you and picks you up when you go down. Anything you put down gets back up a minute or two later, worse than before, unless its body is burned, so fuel, bottles and rags are what the game is really about; fire also spreads along whatever you spilled and burns friend and foe alike. A director tracks your noise, light and fuel to decide where threats appear, and enemies are heard before they are seen. The campaign has six acts, from the suburbs and the hospital to research levels, flooded tunnels, an old village and an abbey. In Bloodthirsty Demon Baby Mode the host can leave seats open for up to eight more players, who join as Crawlers and hunt the survivors in a pack. The developer, Ender Knight, says Claude Code is wired into the studio's Unity projects and writes the back end, while the developer does the design, art direction and play-testing; the Steam AI disclosure adds that AI tools helped produce some 3D models and other assets and that no AI generates content while the game runs. Released on Steam on 31 Oct 2026 for $9.99, with a free demo. It contains graphic violence and disturbing themes (see the content notice).
Screenshots and art
Cradle of Ash key art · Steam store artwork
How it was built
Partially verifiedOn the developer's site (Part 3 of the story page, dated 21 Oct 2026), under “How the games actually get made”, the developer writes: “Engine: Unity 6. Code: Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI coding agent, wired into the Unity project. It writes the back end. I do the design, the art direction and the play-testing”, with other computers on the home network doing the compiling, testing and debugging; the timeline on the same page lists “Cradle of Ash in October”. The developer says they make games “with an AI writing the code I used to think needed a team of two hundred”.
- DeveloperThe video description (21 Oct 2026) announces Cradle of Ash for 31 Oct and, under “HOW I MAKE GAMES”, repeats: “Engine: Unity 6. Code: Claude Code (Anthropic's AI coding agent) wired into the Unity project”. — YouTube (Motis_GameDev)
Made in Unity 6 by one developer, who says Claude Code writes the back-end code while the developer does the design, art direction and play-testing, with the other computers in the house compiling, testing and debugging. The Steam AI disclosure says AI tools were used to help produce some 3D models and other assets during development, under the developer's direction, and that no AI generates content while the game is running. The companions that fill empty seats and the director that places threats are game logic, not generative AI. Steam lists full English audio and interface text in French, Italian, German and Spanish.
- Engine / framework
- Unity
- Languages
- Not disclosed
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer Reportedmotis.games (Ender Knight)
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Code: Claude Code, Anthropic’s AI coding agent, wired into the Unity project. It writes the back end.”Verification notes: AI use from Part 3 of the story page on motis.games (dated 21 Oct 2026) and the description of the developer's YouTube video of the same day (read through YouTube's own data on 7 Nov 2026). The statement covers how the developer's games are made in general rather than this game alone; the same page and video name Cradle of Ash as the developer's second game. No share of AI-written code is stated, so none is recorded. Story, modes and features, price, release date (31 Oct 2026), platform, languages, content notes and the AI disclosure from the Steam store page and store API on 7 Nov 2026; the demo app (5501870) was released on 30 Oct 2026. The store page showed no user reviews on 7 Nov 2026. Developer and publisher on Steam: Ender Knight and M.O.T.I.S., the same as Catnip Wars. The official site is cradleofash.com. Earlier parts of the story page are personal and are not used. The game was not played.
Development history
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
Steam
$9.99 on the Steam store API (cc=us) on 7 Nov 2026; the developer's video description called $9.99 a launch-weekend price with 30% off. Windows only; online co-op and PvP. A free demo (Steam app 5501870, released 30 Oct 2026) includes co-op and Bloodthirsty Demon Baby Mode.
Not publicly available: Concurrent players, Positive Steam reviews, Estimated owners, Gross revenue.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Not currently ranked.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Truck driver to Steam game dev in three months, with Claude Code and Unity (story, Part 3) motis.games (Ender Knight) | Official site | Oct 21, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| I Made a Steam Game in 3 Months With No Team. Here's How (Claude Code + Unity) YouTube (Motis_GameDev) | Social post | Oct 21, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Cradle of Ash on Steam Steam | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Cradle of Ash Demo on Steam Steam | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
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