On the websites of Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty, Amazon Games has now simultaneously addressed each community with a quasi-farewell. Thus, the corporation is definitively burying its originally very ambitious MMO plans.
What is Amazon Games announcing? Let’s first look at the publisher’s message to the western community of Lost Ark (you can find it at playlostark.com). It states: “Starting in early 2027, Amazon Game Studios will terminate the live service operation of Lost Ark, and Smilegate will take over the game going forward.”
Amazon Games is thus parting ways with its greatest success as an MMORPG publisher. During the global launch in February 2022, it was able to attract over 1.3 million Steam players to the servers at times. This still places it at number 6 in the all-time charts for the highest player counts on Steam (Source: steamdb.info).
Even earlier, namely in the fourth quarter of 2026, Amazon Games wants to hand over the western publishing work of Throne and Liberty to FirstSpark Games and NCSoft. You can find the corresponding announcement at playthroneandliberty.com.
In both cases, the western service is not to be discontinued, but rather handed over to the actual developers of the respective game. How exactly this transition will take place is answered by Amazon Games in the two announcements via an associated FAQ section.
A Matter of Time
Why this step? It was only a matter of time before Amazon Games would step back as the publisher of Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty. Even though they claimed something different in October 2025.
- With New World, Amazon Games has already buried its only in-house MMORPG. The final spade will be turned on January 31, 2027, then the servers will go offline forever.
- This end of New World was accompanied by reports that Amazon intended to make a strategic shift for its gaming division, with a greater focus on its own platform Luna and AI-focused games like Courtroom Chaos.
- It also matched with the fact that all mentions of the planned MMORPG for Lord of the Rings have quietly been removed.
- On March 17, 2026, two prominent members of the Lost Ark community team had to announce their end at Amazon Games.
- In April 2026, with “Tico”, the most important face of the western team of Throne and Liberty moved from Amazon Games to NCSoft.
When you put all of this in a pot, it almost inevitably leads to the impending end as publisher of Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty. Or are you surprised right now? Feel free to tell us in the comments!
As of early 2027, the topic of MMORPGs will therefore be definitively over for Amazon Games. However, the ambitions a few years ago were still huge. They invested heavily to become a big player in the gaming industry. In the end, they look back on a field of ruins: Amazon wanted to be a big player in games – The end of New World completes a sad story of failure.
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