Amazon Steps Away from Two More MMOs as Developers Reclaim Publishing Rights
Amazon will stop publishing the MMOs Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty in western markets. NCSOFT (NC) will take over publishing for Throne and Liberty in the west starting in Q4 2026, while Smilegate will assume direct control of Lost Ark in early 2027 (Engadget).
Both games will stay online for existing players through and after the transitions. For Throne and Liberty, NC subsidiary FireSpark Games confirmed that core progression elements — characters and in-game currency — should carry over to the new publisher. The studio is still deciding whether items listed on the in-game Auction House will transfer. Lost Ark players face a harder cut: the game's official blog states that access to in-game mail and chat history will be lost in the move (Engadget).
The handoffs cap a broader retreat from the MMO category for Amazon. The company confirmed in May 2026 that it had ended development on a separate Lord of the Rings MMO, and New World: Aeternum is set to shut down on January 31, 2027. Amazon had announced plans to wind down New World: Aeternum in October 2025 amid mass layoffs. Amazon Games is now shifting its development focus toward titles such as Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis (Polygon.
For the games themselves, content updates continue despite the administrative changes. Lost Ark's August update introduces the Kazeros Raid: Act 2 Extreme and the Panda World Avatar collection. Lost Ark content will also be consolidated in two phases beginning August 26. Throne and Liberty is set to receive the free expansion "Wilds of Talandre" on March 6, following its anniversary celebration event that ran from October 2 to October 15, 2025.
The broader context here is a familiar one for publishing intermediaries — the companies that handle distribution, marketing, and server infrastructure for games they did not develop. Over the years, I have watched my own kids invest hundreds of hours into game ecosystems tied to specific corporate stewards, only to face abrupt migrations when licensing agreements or strategic priorities shift. The friction of account migration, partial data loss, and market uncertainty is not unique to any single publisher, but it compounds when a platform operator pulls back from an entire category. In this author's view, Amazon's pivot away from MMOs reflects the operational and economic realities of sustaining live-service titles — games that require ongoing content updates, heavy regional localization, and continuous infrastructure spending without guaranteed long-term player retention.
What this ultimately enables is a return of IP control to the original developers. NC and Smilegate regaining direct oversight of their franchises in western markets means they can align global content roadmaps and monetization strategies without an intermediary layer. That consolidation may simplify long-term development cadence, even if the immediate transition introduces friction for the existing player base. For technology and infrastructure teams inside these studios, reclaiming publishing rights also means absorbing the operational burden of regional server infrastructure, customer support, and backend account migration — a substantial integration effort for any live-service environment.
