Amazon Cancels Lord of the Rings MMO Again Amid Massive Layoffs

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings MMO has reportedly been canceled for the second time, following sweeping layoffs that hit the company’s games division.

Amazon Cancels Ambitious Lord of the Rings MMO | Embracer Group

The project has had a turbulent history. First announced in 2019, it was originally a collaboration between Amazon Games and Chinese publisher Leyou Technologies. The MMO was pitched as a "massive online adventure set in Middle-earth," taking place long before the events of Tolkien’s main trilogy. However, when Tencent acquired Leyou in 2021, contractual disputes emerged, and the project was quietly shelved.

Amazon wasn’t ready to give up on Middle-earth just yet. In 2023, the company rebooted the MMO in-house, this time partnering with Embracer Group, which had the rights to Tolkien’s works since 2022. Internally, the game was described as "an ambitious, next-gen online world spanning the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings."

Now, according to reports and social media posts from former developers, that second attempt has also been scrapped. In a LinkedIn post (via Eurogamer), senior gameplay engineer Ashleigh Amrine confirmed she was part of the layoffs, writing: “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).” Her comments strongly suggest the MMO has been sunset as part of Amazon’s restructuring.

The layoffs are part of Amazon’s wider cuts, which reportedly affect around 14,000 employees across the company. Bloomberg also shared an internal memo from Steven Boom, Amazon’s vice president of Audio, Twitch, and Game, noting that the company is halting “a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work – specifically around MMOs.”

This isn’t the only blow to Amazon’s gaming ambitions. New World, the studio’s only released MMO, has also been sunset. While servers will remain active until at least 2026, no new content updates are planned. Amazon has promised players at least six months’ notice before any changes that would make the game unplayable.