The Lord of the Rings MMORPG, which was announced in 2023, has ultimately been cancelled.

Amazon's gaming division has officially cancelled its The Lord of the Rings MMORPG project. The news was confirmed on the 14th via a statement provided to Eurogamer by Amazon Games.

When first announced in 2023, the project garnered significant attention as a collaboration between Amazon Games and Middle-earth Enterprises, a subsidiary of Embracer Group. It was notably slated to be developed by Amazon Games' Orange County Studio, the team behind New World.

However, according to leaks from internal sources, development progress was extremely slow, with only a minimal number of staff involved. It was also revealed that the project reached the pre-production stage just before Amazon's restructuring. In this climate, the company's massive layoff of 14,000 employees and a shift in business strategy proved fatal to the project. Reports also surfaced that management had decided to significantly scale back internal development of large-scale games, including MMOs.

Following the cessation of new content development for New World, it became increasingly clear that the project was in jeopardy, and the cancellation was widely treated as a foregone conclusion. This official confirmation came in response to an inquiry regarding the status of the project.

Jeff Gattis, head of Amazon Games, stated, "We are exploring ways to deliver a gaming experience that truly captures the essence of Tolkien's world," adding, "We remain in close cooperation with Middle-earth Enterprises and hold high expectations for the intellectual property." Through this statement, it appears that Amazon Games is considering other new projects related to The Lord of the Rings rather than the cancelled MMORPG.