We can safely say that Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings MMO is dead, although the mega corp has insisted it’s still working on a new Middle-earth video game.
Confirmation comes from Eurogamer, which reported on the cancelation of the game as part of an investigation into Amazon’s push towards generative AI and subsequent widespread layoffs across its development teams.
Amazon Games boss Jeff Grattis, told Eurogamer: “Our creative team continues to explore a compelling new game experience that does justice to Tolkien's world; we are working closely with Middle-earth and remain excited about the IP.”
The Lord of the Rings MMO was thought dead back in October, when Amazon confirmed it was walking away from making new content for its MMO, New World, amid huge layoffs affecting 14,000 roles at the company. According to a report by Bloomberg, these layoffs included “significant” cuts to Amazon’s video game operation, which reduced development work mainly in its Irvine and San Diego offices.
Bloomberg said Amazon was cutting back especially on MMOs, sparking concern for The Lord of the Rings MMO. At the time, a former Amazon Games developer hit by the cuts suggested The Lord of the Rings MMO was dead.
“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),” the developer said in a now-deleted post on LinkedIn.
“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.”
Although The Lord of the Rings MMO was announced in 2023, in August last year, then Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartmann told IGN it was still early days. "We're still trying to find the hook, find that idea of what it is because we don't just want to go and do the same thing over," Hartmann said at the time.
"While it's tempting sometimes with an existing IP, that's not the point of doing it. You've got to find a fresh twist, and we're still, I think, in that period where we really want to find out what could be the hook, what could be the thing which is different to all the other games out there. So it's a little bit early.”
In 2023, Lord of the Rings rights owner Embracer said it needed to be "exploiting Lord of the Rings in a very significant fashion" by turning it into “one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world.” Embracer bought the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in August 2022 and announced plans to explore opportunities to create new games, movies, and more based on the famous intellectual property soon after.
It’s worth digging into Amazon’s statement a little deeper here. Mention of “a compelling new game experience that does justice to Tolkien's world” suggests a new The Lord of the Rings game is in the works. But what could it be? Perhaps it’s the rumored The Lord of the Rings RPG from Kingdom Come: Deliverance developer Warhorse, which, it’s worth pointing out, is owned by Embracer.
This isn’t the first time Amazon has canceled a Lord of the Rings MMO. In 2021, it halted a Lord of the Rings MMORPG that was first announced in 2019 amid a contract dispute with Tencent.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
