Amazon Officially Cancels Long-Awaited ‘Lord of the Rings’ Project After Several Years of Development
Amazon Game Studios has reportedly canceled its planned Lord of the Rings MMO project, which had been in development for several years.
The game was first announced in 2023 and was being developed in partnership with Embracer Group’s Middle-earth Enterprises. It was expected to be a large online multiplayer game set in Tolkien’s world. However, according to Eurogamer, the project has now been shut down before reaching release.
The cancellation is believed to be connected to major layoffs at Amazon in October, when the company cut more than 14,000 corporate roles. Around that time, internal messages also suggested that Amazon was scaling back its work on large AAA and MMO game development.
Jeff Gattis, who leads Amazon Game Studios, responded to questions about the situation. He said: “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.”
Earlier internal communication reported by Bloomberg also pointed to a shift in strategy. The memo explained that Amazon was reducing its focus on large-scale online games.
It stated: “While we’re proud of our successes in first-party AAA game development and publishing, we have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work – specifically around MMOs – within Amazon Game Studios, including making significant role reductions in our studios in Irvine and San Diego, as well as our central publishing team.”
There were also reports from employees affected by the layoffs. One gameplay engineer shared in a now-deleted LinkedIn post that they were part of the team working on the early version of the Lord of the Rings MMO before it was impacted by cuts.
This is not the first time Amazon has canceled a major game project. The company previously stopped development on another Lord of the Rings MMO in 2021, which had started production in 2019. That earlier version ended after complications involving licensing and partnerships with other companies.
Amazon Game Studios has also canceled several other projects over the years. These include the multiplayer shooter Crucible, which was shut down shortly after launch in 2020, and the multiplayer brawler Breakaway, which was canceled in 2018 before release.
More recently, Amazon’s online RPG New World has also faced uncertainty, with reports suggesting it may be nearing the end of its lifecycle by early 2027. These developments have added to ongoing questions about the studio’s long-term direction in the gaming industry.
Despite these cancellations, Amazon says it is still working on new ideas. The company continues to explore future projects, including games based on major intellectual properties like The Lord of the Rings, though the MMO project itself is no longer moving forward.
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