Amazon Is Re-Launching Amazon Luna Later This Year, Will Be Included with Prime Subscription
Amazon has announced that it will be re-launching its cloud gaming service, Amazon Luna, later this year, with a completely redesigned interface, new features, and broader integration into the company’s ecosystem. The service will now be included as part of the Amazon Prime subscription at no additional cost, signaling the company’s renewed effort to capture a share of the growing but highly competitive cloud gaming market.
In a lengthy statement published on the Amazon Games site, the company framed the relaunch as a necessary shift in how the industry approaches gaming, arguing that while there are hundreds of millions of mobile players worldwide, too many still feel excluded from playing games on larger screens because of high hardware costs, complexity, or a perception that they are not “real gamers.” Amazon positioned the new Luna as an accessible and social experience designed to lower barriers and make gaming simpler, more inclusive, and more entertaining for casual audiences as well as families.
A new promotional trailer released alongside the announcement showcases Luna’s refreshed identity, which blends exclusive social party games with blockbuster titles delivered via the cloud. The company describes the platform as an evolution intended to “make every night the perfect game night,” highlighting both Luna’s entertainment focus and its flexibility across devices.
At the center of this relaunch are two defining features. The first is GameNight, a collection of social and party-oriented games exclusive to Amazon Luna, designed to be played through smartphones in a manner similar to Jackbox Party Pack. Among the lineup is the headline launch title, “Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg,” billed as a human-built, AI-powered improv courtroom game in which players create eccentric characters, invent stories, and attempt to win arguments before Judge Snoop Dogg himself. In total, 25 GameNight titles will be available at launch, including new iterations of Angry Birds, Exploding Kittens, Flappy Golf Party, Taboo, Clue, and Ticket to Ride.
The second major element is a rotating library of cloud-playable blockbuster titles. Amazon confirmed that games such as Hogwarts Legacy, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Dave the Diver, Dead Island 2, and Borderlands 3 will be included for Prime subscribers. For users seeking an expanded experience, Amazon will also offer a premium tier that unlocks further titles such as EA Sports FC 25, LEGO DC Super Villains, Team Sonic Racing, and Batman: Arkham Knight. All games are playable using any Bluetooth-compatible controller or Amazon’s own Luna controller.
The relaunch is also notable in the broader context of cloud gaming’s recent history. Amazon Luna originally launched in 2020 but struggled to establish itself, particularly after Google’s Stadia shuttered and Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming alongside NVIDIA’s GeForce Now set the pace for the market. With this reintroduction, Amazon is no longer aiming to compete strictly as a high-performance cloud streaming platform, but rather as a socially oriented gaming hub that complements Prime’s existing value proposition. By bundling Luna into Prime at no added cost, Amazon seeks to leverage its subscription base to reduce adoption barriers and potentially succeed where past efforts faltered.
With a focus on family-friendly design, accessible gameplay, and a balance between casual party experiences and high-profile blockbuster releases, Amazon is positioning Luna’s relaunch as both a rethink of gaming accessibility and a strategic expansion of Prime’s entertainment ecosystem. Whether this strategy resonates with players and manages to establish Luna as a long-term competitor in cloud gaming remains to be seen, but the company’s approach this time is clearly more integrated, ambitious, and designed to emphasize both social play and mainstream accessibility.
Do you think Amazon Luna’s integration with Prime and focus on social game nights can give it the traction it lacked during its first launch, or is the cloud gaming market still too fragmented to support another major player?
