During the gamescom 2024, Christoph Hartmann, Vice President at Amazon Games, discussed the current status of major projects like the new MMORPG for Lord of the Rings.
What does Christoph Hartmann say? The Vice President spoke in an exclusive interview with IGN about the current state of games being developed at Amazon Games. It was clear that this included the MMORPG for Lord of the Rings announced in May 2023. Here are the key insights:
- The MMORPG for Lord of the Rings is still in a very early development phase.
- They are currently trying to find the unique angle or hook for the online role-playing game, as they do not want to simply copy Lord of the Rings Online or other existing games in the franchise.
- Although Hartmann promised a timely presentation of the MMORPG by June 2024 (via variety.com), it will still take a while before the concrete announcement of the game is made.
One of the currently most important projects from Amazon Games – the MMORPG Throne and Liberty:
Amazon Games attacks as a publisher
Was there also a statement about New World and Lost Ark? During the interview, Christoph Hartmann was asked why the two MMORPGs could not establish themselves in the long term after their respective great starts. The Vice President’s response:
With New World and Lost Ark, we had some promising successes. These things are hard to maintain because people invest a lot of time and try new things, but then they quickly return to their evergreen franchises that they have always played, so we just keep going.
But yes, of course we want to have one of those big franchises, that’s what it’s all about. Anything smaller wouldn’t be interesting for Amazon; we are a larger-than-life company. We are not here to try it out and develop a few nice games.
Christoph Hartmann from Amazon Games via IGN
What else did the Vice President reveal? According to Christoph Hartmann, they have not yet established themselves as a publisher, but they want to work on that with new projects. Lost Ark, Throne and Liberty, and Blue Protocol are just the beginning. However, they want to diversify increasingly and not only manage MMOs.
Fresh from gamescom 2024, the “Hack and Slash” co-op game King of Meat was introduced – more on this in the preview from the colleagues at GameStar. It is also already known for some time that Amazon Games is supporting the developers of Crystal Dynamics with the new Tomb Raider. In total, Hartmann mentioned in the interview that ten new games are currently in development.
During the conversation, the Amazon Games chief emphasized that Crystal Dynamics has reportedly been somewhat insulated from the turmoil at Embracer. Therefore, the development of Tomb Raider is expected to make noticeable progress.
In the financial report, the Embracer executives announced a stronger focus on the licenses of “Middle Earth Enterprises”, especially “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”. Current projects like the animated film “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” are said to be just the beginning. More on this here: The company aims to fully focus on Lord of the Rings after extensive layoffs – MMORPG from Amazon is just the beginning
