Amazon’s ambitious Lord of the Rings MMO has reportedly been scrapped for a second time, following major layoffs that gutted the company’s games division.
The project was first announced in 2019, a collaboration between Amazon Games and Chinese publisher Leyou Technologies. It was billed as a large-scale online adventure set in Middle-earth, years before the events of Tolkien’s main trilogy. But, by 2021, the deal had fallen apart after Tencent acquired Leyou, leading to disputes that killed the project.
Amazon later rebooted the MMO in-house, striking a new deal with Embracer Group to bring the game back to life. Details were scarce, but the project was described internally as an ambitious, next-gen online world set in Tolkien’s universe.
Lord of the Rings MMO canceled twice
Unfortunately, that version now appears to have met the same fate. Following widespread layoffs across Amazon gaming, the Lord of the Rings MMO has reportedly been shelved once again.
In a LinkedIn post, the Senior Gameplay Engineer and Tech Lead 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 (y’all would have loved it).”
As such, it’s apparent that the highly anticipated MMO has been sunset, with its team having been laid off as part of the major changes for the Amazon gaming team.
On top of the cancellation, New World, which was Amazon’s only MMO and which launched in 2021, has also been sunset. The studio confirmed earlier this month that the game will receive no new content updates going forward, though servers will remain active through at least 2026.
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