Amazon’s upcoming MMO based on The Lord of the Rings seems to have been canceled, following mass layoffs across multiple divisions, especially the in-house gaming teams.
Amazon has just cut thousands of staff members, all due to a pivot to AI that has cost many people their jobs. One casualty of this move is New World, which is being put into maintenance mode and won’t receive any more updates, and will be shut down in 2026.
In 2023, Amazon announced an MMO based on The Lord of the Rings. This project has also been affected by the layoffs, as revealed by Ashleigh Amrine, a former Senior Gameplay Engineer at Amazon Games, who mentioned on LinkedIn that the team behind The Lord of the Rings game had also been affected.
What Happened With Amazon Games?
Amazon made a pivot towards gaming in 2012, when Amazon Games was formed. Unfortunately, it hasn’t produced many hits, with the biggest being New World, but even that fizzled out, losing its audience to more established MMOs as it struggled to deliver content that could bring them back.
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