With 10 titles currently in development, Amazon Games Studio is clearly hoping to diversify into success before sinking into unprofitability. One of the bigger titles that the studio is banking on is its unnamed Lord of the Rings MMO, which it’s developing in conjunction with the Embracer Group.
It might be a while yet in coming, however. In an interview with IGN at Gamescom 2024, Amazon Games CEO Christoph Hartmann said that the team still hasn’t figured out the approach it wants to take for this second attempt at the project.
“We’re still trying to find the hook,” he said, “find that idea of what it is because we don’t just want to go and do the same thing over. While it’s tempting sometimes with an existing IP, that’s not the point of doing it. You’ve got to find a fresh twist, and we’re still, I think, in that period where we really want to find out what could be the hook, what could be the thing which is different to all the other games out there. So it’s a little bit early.”
Hartmann also spoke to the challenges and benefits of developing MMOs, saying, “It will be one of the genres obviously that will be around forever, it’s one of the foundations of gaming. But it’s a very tough business in the long run, especially I think for smaller developers to innovate because the cost of maintaining the game is just very, very high.”
Back in June, the studio said that a full reveal of the game is “not too far away.” Amazon announced this rebooted Lord of the Rings project back in May 2023. Here’s everything we know about it so far.
