Amazon Games is restructuring its games division. As a result, the company is halting the development of most of its in-house AAA games, particularly MMOs. New World is already being placed in maintenance mode.
Amazon Game Studios is reportedly carrying out mass layoffs as part of a wider redundancy programme at Amazon, which will affect a total of 14,000 employees, according to reports from Bloomberg, Variety and MassivelyOP. The company justifies these changes by citing a changed market environment and a desire to focus more on streaming and AI, while scaling back the development of costly first-party games, especially MMOs. The company is now shifting its focus to smaller, more casual, AI-based games offered on the Luna cloud gaming platform. Luna was recently revamped.
Most affected by the cuts are Amazon Game Studios in Irvine and San Diego. The MMO New World, launched in 2021, will no longer receive content updates and will be put into maintenance mode. The servers are expected to continue running until 2026. The two third-party MMOs, Throne and Liberty and Lost Ark, will continue to receive regular updates and community engagement. It is unclear whether the planned Lord of the Rings MMO is also facing cancellation. However, Amazon Game Studios will continue to work with its external studio partners Crystal Dynamics on an upcoming Tomb Raider title and Maverick Games on an upcoming open-world driving game.
