2 weeks ago
Amazon Games
The Lord of nan Rings MMO successful improvement astatine Amazon has been cancelled, but there's still a Tolkien-based thing connected nan way, Eurogamer reports. The destiny of nan Lord of nan Rings MMO has been uncertain since October 2025, erstwhile Amazon laid off a important information of its Games division, shuttered its four-year-old MMO, New World: Aeternum, and trim measurement backmost connected awesome crippled investments.
Amazon passively confirmed nan cancellation of the Lord of nan Rings MMO to Eurogamer, which asked for a remark aft proceeding from workplace insiders this twelvemonth that it was officially shelved. Amazon's gaming lead Jeff Grattis said, "Our imaginative squad continues to research a compelling caller crippled acquisition that does justness to Tolkien's world; we are moving intimately pinch Middle-earth and stay excited astir nan IP." That's arsenic adjacent to a "yeah, that large ol' MMO is dead" arsenic it comes, successful trading speak.
The New World team, Amazon Games Orange County, started publically working connected nan Lord of nan Rings MMO successful 2023. When nan layoffs rolled done 2 years later, Amazon said successful a unit memo that it was withdrawing support for big-budget titles and particularly MMOs, but nan institution didn't publically sanction names. Around that time, a erstwhile elder gameplay technologist apparently posted and past deleted a LinkedIn connection alluding to nan decease of nan Lord of nan Rings MMO (while breaking our hearts moreover more): "This greeting I was portion of nan layoffs astatine Amazon Games alongside my incredibly talented peers connected New World and our fledgling Lord of nan Rings crippled (y'all would person loved it)."
Claims of nan cancellation emerged this week arsenic portion of a larger Eurogamer investigation into Amazon's generative-AI mandates and consequent layoffs.
Amazon still has authorities to make video games based on The Lord of nan Rings and The Hobbit nether its 2023 woody pinch Embracer Group, and it's besides producing the Rings of Power tv show based connected JRR Tolkien's works. Amazon precocious announced it was shutting down Glowmade's dungeon crawler King of Meat just six months aft launch, and it's presently focused on simplifying Luna, its game-streaming service, successful an overt bid to make Prime subscriptions much attractive.
Let's dream nan equation of (has LotR license) + (needs Luna content) + (is OK pinch AI successful imaginative settings) doesn't lead to thing dreadful here.
