Amazon Game Studios has canceled Lord of the Rings online role play, Bloomberg report. The company announced the project with Athlon Games in Leyou in 2019 and plans that it would be a free game for computers and consoles.
The match would be set up ‘at a time long before the events of The Lord of the Rings, exploring lands, humans, and creatures never before seen by fans of the Tolkien universe, ”according to a statement from Athlon at the time. But Leyou was acquired by Tencent Holdings in December, and contract negotiations between Amazon and Tencent later fell apart. Bloomberg report.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday, but a spokesman said Bloomberg that we “could not guarantee the conditions to continue” with the game. “We love the Lord of the Rings IP, and are disappointed that we will not bring this game to customers,” the spokesman said.
Since its launch in 2014, Amazon Game Studios has not released a successful video game, which cancels some previously announced games and delays others. The video adaptation of The Grand Tour in 2019 received such bad reviews that the game was taken out of the store windows. In January, Bloomberg reported that the gaming studio had internal problems, including a culture that did not offer equal opportunities to men and women, and an internal gaming engine that was ‘painfully slow’.
But current Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in response that he is committed to the video games division, which started under the outgoing CEO and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who will be CEO later this year thank. “I believe this team will get there if we stay focused on what’s most important,” Jassy said.