According to a Bloomberg report, Amazon Game Studios has canceled its Lord of the Rings MMO due to a dispute between Amazon and Tencent. The game was being co-developed with Athlon Games.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the cancellation of the project and stated: “We have been unable to secure terms to proceed with this title at this time. We love the Lord of the Rings IP, and are disappointed that we won’t be bringing this game to customers.”
The project isn’t anything new either. The game was first announced about two and a half years ago in September 2018. The game was set to take place much earlier in the Tolkien universe compared to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It was going to show new environments and characters never before seen.
In the meantime, Amazon has been creating a Lord of the Rings TV show and has been putting quite an amount of money into the project. A full-fledged MMO would have paired nicely with the new show.
It just goes to show how difficult it is to create a video game — especially one that was going to be an MMO of this magnitude. Amazon has struggled so far in the video game development scene. Its other MMO title New World has already been delayed multiple times and is set to release later this summer.
