The industry insider Jason Schreier has found out that Amazon is no longer working on the new Lord of the Rings MMO. The reason for this seems to be a dispute with the company Tencent. The cancellation of the MMO is another setback for Amazon’s gaming division.
What happened? In 2019, the Lord of the Rings MMO was announced. It was to be developed by the Chinese company Leyou Technologies in collaboration with Amazon.
However, Leyou Technologies was bought by the Chinese giant Tencent in December 2020. Tencent owns companies like Riot Games (LoL), Funcom (Conan Exiles), and Digital Extremes (Warframe). This acquisition is said to have led to issues during contract negotiations, explains journalist Jason Schreier in his article (on Bloomberg).
According to Schreier, a spokesperson from Amazon confirmed that the company was unable to establish conditions under which the title could currently be further developed. The developers who worked on the Lord of the Rings MMO are now expected to switch to other projects.
“We love the ‘Lord of the Rings’ IP and are disappointed that we will not be able to bring this game to customers,” said an Amazon spokesperson in a statement to Jason Schreier, Bloomberg.
Lord of the Rings MMO was supposed to enter beta in 2022
What was known about the MMO so far? The game based on Lord of the Rings was supposed to be Free2Play and take place before the events of the film trilogy. This would avoid potential conflicts with the already existing MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online.
Amazon could have formed a strong synergy with the also announced Lord of the Rings series, which is expected to premiere on Amazon Prime Video in the foreseeable future.
As of January 2021, the complete story is said to have been determined and a first prototype of the game was planned for the summer of 2021. Additionally, dates for a closed beta (September 30, 2022) and a release (in 2023) were mentioned. This could be inferred from the information on the Leyou Technologies website.
These documents also mentioned a release for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The next-gen consoles were probably not taken into account at that time.
However, there was still no image or video material of the game at all.
Amazon fails to produce a successful game
Why is this tragic for Amazon? For several years, Amazon has had a game development division. However, it has not produced any successful games so far:
- Amazon’s first game was called Breakaway and was seen as a mix of the popular games Overwatch and Rocket League. The project was initially paused in the fall of 2017 for reworking. However, the developers ultimately declared Breakaway dead in 2018.
- The second game was Crucible. The hero shooter was reverted to beta after a disastrous launch phase, and the developers ultimately gave up on it as well.
What’s next for Amazon Gaming
Which titles from Amazon are already known? The only title from Amazon that is currently set to release is New World. However, this release has been delayed multiple times. As of now, New World is supposed to be released on August 30, 2021.
At least the recent developments are positive, as various new content has been announced, including diverse weapons and a first dungeon. However, many still fear that the content at the launch of New World may not be sufficient to retain players in the long term.
We at MeinMMO were able to play New World in the summer of 2020 and although our conclusion was positive, there were also numerous issues:
What else is happening at Amazon Gaming? In addition to New World, there are currently two other MMOs associated with Amazon:
- One is that the Korean MMORPG Lost Ark is being brought to the West by Amazon. The release was officially announced for 2021, but it has been notably quiet since this announcement. So far, there are no more specific statements or the prospect of beta tests.
- Moreover, gaming veteran John Smedley (EverQuest, PlanetSide 2) has been at Amazon since 2017. He is said to be working on an undisclosed sci-fi MMO. However, there are no specific details on this either.
- The focus of Amazon Gaming seems to temporarily remain on New World.
Those looking for new MMOs and multiplayer titles set to release this year can find highlights in our extensive release overview:
New games 2021: Releases of MMOs and multiplayer games
