The Lord Of The Rings MMO Reportedly Scrapped, But Amazon Confirms A ‘New Game Experience’ Set In Middle-Earth Is Coming

Amazon Games has confirmed it is working on a “new game experience” set in the The Lord of the Rings universe, following reports last October that it had scrapped its The Lord of the Rings MMO based on the epic fantasy series.

Amazon’s gaming boss, Jeff Gattis, issued the following statement to Eurogamer after they received new details about the cancellation of the MMO. And, while he didn’t outright confirm or deny that the Lord of the Rings MMO was shelved, the writing is pretty much in the wall at this point.

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 Enterprises and remain excited about the IP.

As previously reported, The Lord of the Rings MMO was scrapped following a number of layoff at the studio in October 2025. Amazon Games announced at the same time that it was stepping away from working on MMO titles. The Lord Of the Rings MMO was announced in 2023 and was a collaboration between Embrace Group and Amazon Games, with New World creators Amazon Studios Orange County handling core development of the project.

A source told Eurogamer also stated that “over 1,000” people were transitioned to The Lord of the Rings team in the months prior to Amazon’s decision to bring active development of New World to an end. The source added that Amazon was “ramping everybody off New World” and onto the Lord of the Rings MMO as the layoffs happened.

“When they got the license [Amazon] immediately announced it was making it before talking to any developers,” said the source, adding, “for many years” the company only had “one or two people working on it as a side project.” However, just “a single concept art” was made every couple of months, described as “standard concept art that didn’t warrant the time.” Finally, they added that the time when staff were being moved onto the Lord of the Rings team was “when it was actually going into pre-production.”

This isn’t the only time that Amazon Games has attempted an MMO based on The Lord of the Rings. Back in 2019, the company announced that the project was in the works for PC and consoles with Amazon Games Studios and Leyou Entertainment working on it. However, in April 2021, it was revealed that the game had been cancelled.

[Source – Eurogamer]