„You would have loved it.” Amazon’s Lord of the Rings MMO was planned to last a decade, but it didn’t even make it to release

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Lord of the Rings won’t get a new MMORPG from Amazon after the recent major layoffs.

Ashleigh Amrine’s recent news is likely upsetting for fans of Lord of the Rings. She announced she was affected by large-scale layoffs at Amazon, losing her job at Amazon Games along with many others.

Amrine announced on LinkedIn that several people who were developing New World have left the studio, along with others working on a new game based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s world. She described the upcoming game as something players would really enjoy and praised the development team as exceptionally talented, creative, and kind.

As we’ve already said, her news wasn’t unexpected. When Amazon announced layoffs at its game studio, they also said they were stopping development on some expensive projects, especially large online games. This didn’t give much hope for the future of the new Lord of the Rings game.

The game project, first announced in 2023, hasn’t progressed much in the last two and a half years. While Amazon Games’ head, Christoph Hartmann, said in May 2024 that development was still underway, it now appears the game – originally intended to be supported for a decade – may never be released.

After a decade with Amazon’s gaming studio, Amrine is taking some time off. However, her colleagues are already encouraging her to consider opportunities at companies like CD Projekt or Zynga. Meanwhile, Amazon is expected to contribute significantly to a wave of job cuts in the gaming industry, with estimates suggesting between 14,000 and 30,000 people could be affected.

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2025-10-31 20:02