"What’s taters, precious? What’s taters, eh?". A great IP with a horrible company. Lord of The Rings is the ultimate cash machine for any company out there and somehow Amazon managed to ruin this as well. The series was not enough now the game is suffering as well.
Amazon has reaffirmed that it still intends to make a Lord of the Rings game, despite reports last month that its long-in-development MMO had been cancelled. Head of games Jeff Gattis pushed back on the framing, saying "nothing's been cancelled per se" and that the company is "still looking at a number of concepts," adding that he had recently reviewed a project he found "quite compelling that perhaps we can go forward with." The careful wording stops short of confirming the MMO survives in its original form, instead suggesting Amazon has moved on from that specific concept while keeping its commitment to the broader IP and its partnership with Middle-earth Enterprises intact.
A Familiar Pattern for Amazon and Middle-earth
The company's first attempt, announced in 2019 with developer Athlon Games and partner Leyou, was cancelled in 2021 after Tencent acquired Leyou and the two sides could not agree on terms to continue. Amazon then announced a fresh Lord of the Rings MMO in 2023, this time working with Middle-earth Enterprises under what was then Embracer Group, and it is that second project now reported to be all but dead following layoffs across Amazon Games through 2023 to 2025. So when Gattis says the team is exploring new concepts, the backdrop is two collapsed Middle-earth MMOs rather than one, which lends the reassurances a certain weight of history.
The Strategy Behind the Pivot
Gattis was clearer about Amazon's wider direction, and it points firmly toward established IP over original creations. The company's slate now leans on recognisable franchises including Tomb Raider and James Bond, and Gattis framed that as deliberate, noting Amazon is prioritising known properties while treating original IP as something that might emerge from experiments in "more innovative game mechanics" rather than a primary focus. He tied the AAA ambitions directly to Amazon's entertainment ecosystem, saying "broad appeal IP fits in with Prime Video" and that the company doesn't want to pursue "AAA things that don't have any real reason to exist in Amazon." In plain terms, a big-budget game now needs to justify itself as part of the wider Amazon machine, not just as a game.
Plenty of Promises, Few Proof Points
The honest tension in Gattis's comments is that he's asking for patience from a division that has struggled to deliver for over a decade. He openly acknowledged the gap, saying he wished the company's projects "could come faster so that I could have proof points to tell you instead of saying, 'Trust me, we've got stuff coming.'" That candour lands against a long record of Amazon Games difficulties, with cancelled titles like Breakaway and Crucible, the poorly received Grand Tour Game, and New World standing as one of the few releases to actually ship and find an audience. Amazon clearly still wants to turn the Lord of the Rings licence into a game, and the relationship with Middle-earth Enterprises appears to remain in place. Whether the third concept, or whichever one Gattis eventually greenlights, makes it to players is the question the company still can't answer with anything firmer than "all in due time."
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