Amazon’s Lord of the Rings MMO Reportedly Cancelled Again Following Massive Company Layoffs
Amazon’s long-troubled Lord of the Rings MMO has reportedly been cancelled once more, this time as part of Amazon’s recent wave of mass layoffs that affected over 14,000 employees across multiple divisions, including Amazon Game Studios. The layoffs also ended development on New World: Aeternum, effectively shuttering Amazon’s remaining large-scale MMORPG projects.
The news surfaced through a LinkedIn post by former Amazon Game Studios senior gameplay engineer Ashleigh Amrine, who confirmed that the Lord of the Rings MMO had been part of the cuts. In her post, she wrote:
“This morning I was part of layoffs at Amazon Games, alongside my incredibly talented peers on New World and our fledgling Lord of the Rings game (ya’ll would have loved it). It’s always tough to see such a strong team go through something like this. I’ve been lucky to work with some of the most skilled, creative, and kind developers I’ve ever met here.”
While Amazon has not officially confirmed the cancellation, multiple indicators suggest that the project has indeed been shelved again. This marks the second time the Lord of the Rings MMO has been cancelled, following an earlier termination in 2021 after a contract dispute with Tencent. The game was later revived in 2023, with Amazon announcing plans to rebuild it from the ground up using a next-generation version of the New World engine.
At the time, Amazon Game Studios boss Christoph Hartmann described the project as being in the early stages of development, acknowledging that much of the work had restarted from scratch. However, given its early development status, it appears Amazon has chosen to cut its losses amid restructuring.
The speculation was further reinforced by statements from Steve Boom, Amazon’s head of audio, Twitch, and games, who referred to the layoffs as “significant” and confirmed that Amazon would be halting first-party development for MMOs going forward.
This decision comes as part of a broader shift in Amazon’s gaming strategy, which has seen the company reduce investments in large-scale online titles despite years of internal development and the moderate success of New World.
For now, fans of Tolkien’s world will have to look elsewhere for their next Middle-earth adventure. While the future of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings gaming projects remains uncertain, the latest news suggests that a new MMO based on the franchise is unlikely to appear anytime soon.
Do you think Amazon should have continued developing the Lord of the Rings MMO, or was cutting the project the right move given its troubled history?
