Report: Amazon cancels The Lord of the Rings MMO
Amazon Games general manager, Jeffrey Gattis, says the team is continuing work on a Lord of the Rings "new game experience," amid reports that the MMO announced in 2023 has been canceled.
In a statement to Eurogamer, Gattis said the following: "Our creative team continues to explore a compelling new game experience that does justice to Tolkien's world; we are working closely with Middle-earth and remain excited about the IP."
The statement was provided in response to a request for comment from Eurogamer regarding a larger story on reported use of generative AI across Amazon Game Studios.
According to the publication, a source said that the team behind the Lord of the Rings MMO reportedly "had like three people on it for the longest time, before they started moving New World devs to Lord of the Rings, and then everyone got laid off."
The Lord of the Rings MMO, led by a collaboration between Amazon Games and Embracer, was announced back in 2023. Amazon has been largely radio silent about the project itself, but the context surrounding it has been tumultuous, to say the least.
Throughout 2023 alone, specifically in April and November, Amazon reportedly cut around 280 jobs across its video game division. Then, in October of last year, Amazon confirmed plans to make approximately 14,000 people redundant within its corporate workforce, which included staff within the game division.
During the latter wave of redundancies, as per a memo to staff obtained by Variety, the company said the staff cuts indicated a larger strategy shift within the games division. At the time, Steve Boom, vice president of Amazon audio, Twitch, and games, reportedly said the company has made the "difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work," specifically around MMOs, within Amazon Game Studios.
Around the same time, Amazon announced it was ending active development on MMO New World: Aeternum four years after release.
The last couple of months of Amazon Games haven't painted the rosiest picture for the division. Ubisoft acquired March of Giants developer Amazon Games Montreal back in December. In late January, Amazon Game Studios boss Cristoph Hartmann reportedly left the company as Amazon continued to invest in cloud gaming.
Then, in February, Amazon shut down UGC dungeon brawler King of Meat after six months. Regarding the investment in cloud gaming, the company downscaled its cloud video game service last month, which will no longer offer third-party subscriptions and stores.
