In a disheartening blow to fans of massively multiplayer online games and the rich lore of J.R.R. Tolkien, Amazon Games has quietly shelved its highly-anticipated Lord of the Rings MMO project. The cancellation, confirmed through the poignant words of a laid-off developer, marks the second time the project has failed to leave the Shire and underscores a significant strategic shift for the tech giant's gaming division.
The news came not through a formal press release, but from a heartfelt and now-deleted LinkedIn post from Ashleigh Amrine, a former Senior Gameplay Engineer at Amazon Games. Amrine, who had spent over nine years with the company, was one of the thousands affected by Amazon's latest round of corporate layoffs.
"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," Amrine wrote. She then added a line that will surely sting for hopeful fans: "Y’all would have loved it."
Her post, initially spotted by Rock Paper Shotgun, paints a picture of a passionate and skilled team suddenly disbanded. "It’s always tough to see such a strong team go through something like this," she continued. "I’ve been lucky to work with some of the most skilled, creative, and kind developers I’ve met there."
The Bigger Picture: Widespread Layoffs and a Strategic Pivot
These game studio cuts are part of a much larger, devastating wave of layoffs at Amazon, which is reported to ultimately affect 14,000 employees across the company's vast operations. Within Amazon Games, the impact was particularly severe, with an "undisclosed" number of staff let go from its studios in San Diego and Irvine, California, as well as its central publishing team.
Christoph Hartmann, Vice President of Amazon Games, confirmed the difficult decisions in an internal announcement. “We have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development,” he stated. This move signals a clear departure from the company's ambitious, big-budget MMO aspirations.
Instead, Amazon Games will now pivot its focus toward the development of casual titles, investments in artificial intelligence (AI) projects, and the continued growth of its cloud gaming service, Luna. This strategic realignment away from the resource-intensive MMO genre leaves a notable void in the gaming landscape.
A History of Hurdles: The Lord of the Rings MMO's Troubled Past
This is not the first time an Amazon-backed Lord of the Rings MMO has met an untimely end. The project has been plagued by misfortune from the start.
The initial attempt was announced back in 2019, following a partnership with Leyou Technologies and its subsidiary, Athlon Games. That deal fell apart due to contract discrepancies after the Chinese conglomerate Tencent acquired Leyou, leaving the project in legal limbo and ultimately leading to its first cancellation.
Hope was rekindled in 2023 when Amazon Games secured a new publishing agreement with Embracer Group’s Middle-earth Enterprises, the current rights-holders. This new deal suggested a fresh start and a clear path forward, making this latest cancellation all the more disappointing for those who had been eagerly following the project's tumultuous journey.
The Ripple Effect: What This Means for New World and Fans
The layoffs and strategic shift also have direct implications for Amazon's existing MMO, New World. The company confirmed that active development on New World has officially ended, with its recently released Season 10: Nighthaven serving as the game's final major content update.
Amazon has committed to keeping the New World servers online through at least 2026 and has promised to give the remaining player base a six-month notice before any eventual sunsetting. This move effectively signals the end of Amazon's direct involvement in creating and maintaining large-scale, persistent online worlds—at least for the foreseeable future.
For now, the dream of exploring a new, Amazon-crafted Middle-earth alongside thousands of other players has faded. The words of a former developer linger as a bittersweet epitaph for a game that never was: "Y'all would have loved it." The cancellation leaves fans to wonder what could have been, as another ambitious chapter in the saga of bringing Tolkien's universe to the MMO genre is reluctantly closed.