After nearly seven months of rumors and speculation, Amazon recently officially confirmed that its "Lord of the Rings" massively multiplayer online game announced in May 2023 has been cancelled. However, the company also stated that it has not given up on the Middle-earth IP and that a "compelling new game experience" is being explored.
As early as October 2025, Amazon laid off approximately 14,000 employees, affecting multiple departments of its game studios. At that time, there was widespread suspicion that the "Lord of the Rings" MMO project had been cut in half. Since then, a former Amazon Game Studios senior gameplay engineer posted on LinkedIn that players "would have loved" the game; and leaked internal memos also showed that the company is scaling back the production of AAA and MMO games.
Despite this, there has been no official confirmation. Until recently, when Eurogamer was investigating the cancellation of another AI-driven project, Project Trident, it asked Jeff Grattis, head of Amazon's game department, for confirmation, and received a clear response: "Our creative team is exploring a new and compelling game experience that faithfully presents the world of Tolkien. We continue to work closely with the Middle-earth team and are passionate about this IP."
This statement is equivalent to confirming that the "Lord of the Rings" MMO officially announced in May 2023 has been cancelled.
According to Eurogamer, citing anonymous people familiar with the matter, the project faced problems from the beginning: Amazon announced the MMO without finding a dedicated development team, and for several years, only "one or two people" promoted it as a side project.
Until the eve of layoffs in October 2025, more than 1,000 developers were reportedly transferred from the "New World: Eternal" project to the "Lord of the Rings" project. However, after large-scale layoffs, the remaining MMO development manpower within Amazon is almost enough to maintain online works, such as "New World", "Kingdom and Freedom" and "Lost Ark".
Despite the death of the original MMO project, Amazon seems to be still looking for a way to return to Middle-earth. In March of this year, Insider Gaming reported that Crystal Dynamics may be developing a Middle-Earth themed game. It’s worth noting that Crystal Dynamics is currently working closely with Amazon on Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Tomb Raider: Catalyst.
Currently, the "Lord of the Rings" online game market is still running "Lord of the Rings Online" operated by Daybreak Studio. It has been 19 years since its release and it still maintains a large player base.