A former Amazon developer has suggested the company’s Lord of the Rings MMO has been cancelled following major layoffs that gutted Amazon Game Studios and halted much of its first-party MMO development.
Amazon’s Lord of the Rings MMO has reportedly been cancelled following the recent company’s major layoffs.
The news comes after Bloomberg reported that Amazon had cut “a significant amount” of its first-party AAA development work – specifically around MMOs – as part of 14,000 company-wide job losses.
In a supposed internal memo, Amazon vice president Steven Boom described the layoffs as “a difficult but necessary step” as the company scales back investment in its games division.
Among the affected projects is said to be the unannounced Lord of the Rings MMO, which had reportedly been in early development at Amazon’s Orange County studio, the same team behind New World.
Former senior gameplay engineer Ashleigh Amrine later claimed the project had indeed met its demise in a LinkedIn post.
She 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).”
If confirmed, this would be the second Lord of the Rings MMO to be cancelled under Amazon’s leadership, following the termination of a previous attempt in 2021 after a contractual dispute with Tencent.
The company has not yet issued an official statement regarding the MMO’s cancellation.
Elsewhere, Insider Gaming reported another Lord of the Rings game was in development at Embracer Group and Revenge, with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) said to be potentially investing roughly $100 million into the project.
Lord of the Rings MMO ‘shelved at Amazon following recent studio layoffs’
