Amazon Gaming is Changing in 2026

When Amazon first announced its entry into the gaming industry, I was immediately wary. While the company certainly has the capital to produce high-quality games, the move seemed like nothing more than an attempt to cash in on a growing, profitable market. This week’s report has only further solidified that opinion for me. According to a report by The Verge, Amazon will be abandoning development on its various MMOs as well as instituting mass layoffs, of course.

Amazon currently publishes three MMOs: New World: Aeternum, Throne and Liberty, as well as Lost Ark. While both Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty are promised to receive continued support for the immediate future, in the form of content updates and community events, the same can’t be said for New World. Amazon announced that the game will no longer receive new content after 2026. Servers will still be live; however, I wouldn’t be surprised if they shut down after 2026.

In regard to this change, Steve Boom, Vice President of the games division, had this to say: “While we’re proud of our successes in first-party AAA game development and publishing, we have made the difficult decision to halt a significant amount of our first-party AAA game development work – specifically around MMOs – within Amazon Game Studios, including making significant role reductions in our studios in Irvine and San Diego, as well as our central publishing team.”

In the place of these AAA games, Amazon has decided to instead pivot towards “more casual and AI-focused games.” This includes doubling down on the Luna platform, which essentially is Amazon’s version of Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

While this is certainly a business-focused move, Amazon did also confirm that it is still actively publishing a new Tomb Raider title in partnership with Crystal Dynamics. Alongside this, the studio still plans to release the upcoming MOBA title, March of the Giants. Set in a steampunk fantasy world, March of the Giants introduces some tactical elements to the MOBA genre in the form of “Battleworks’ and allows you to command vast armies of minions directly.

No matter how you feel about these changes or Amazon, it’s always sad to see games be placed on life support. Hopefully, dedicated New World players will receive some nice rewards before the game closes down.