NEWS
by Dan Lenois
Lord of the Rings MMORPG cancelled by Amazon Games
The current collapse of Amazon Games, happening in real-time, has caught up several live and forthcoming titles in its midst. Just two days ago, Amazon Games announced the cessation of any future development on New World: Aeternum, their first-party MMORPG title, originally released back in 2021, as part of a announcement that the studio had:
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.”
The aforementioned reference to "MMOs", as a plural, indicated that the development abandonment of New World: Aeternum was not the only bad news coming down the pipleine.
In a now-deleted LinkedIn post, Ashleigh Amrine, now-former senior gameplay engineer at Amazon Games, wrote:
"This morning I was part of the layoffs at Amazon Games, alongside my incredibly talented peers on New World and our fledgling Lord of the Rings game."
Specifically regarding the Lord of the Rings MMO, Amrine declined to disclose gameplay details, but merely added:
"Y'all would have loved it"
This cancellation comes only two and a half years after Amazon Games and Middle-earth Enterprises, a subsidiary of Embracer Group, signed a partnership agreement enabling Amazon Games to begin development on an unannounced Lord of the Rings MMORPG.