Amazon Games to Exit MMO Publishing for Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty

Amazon Games is ending its publishing and live service operations for the massive multiplayer online (MMO) titles Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty in Western markets. The company will hand the games back to their original developers and partners over the next two years.

According to official announcements and reports from PC Gamer and GamesRadar+, the transition will occur in phases. Throne and Liberty is scheduled to be handed over to NC in late 2026. Following that, Lost Ark will transition its live service operations back to Smilegate in early 2027. In an official post, Amazon Game Studios confirmed that "starting in early 2027, Amazon Game Studios will end its live service operations of Lost Ark, with Smilegate taking over going forward."

A Strategic Retreat

This decision follows a period of mixed results for Amazon's ambitions in the MMO space. The company attempted to build a dominant presence in the genre through a combination of original intellectual property, such as New World, and third-party publishing agreements. While Lost Ark achieved massive initial success upon its Steam launch, player counts across Amazon's MMO portfolio have generally dwindled over time. This decline has led the company to pivot away from the high-maintenance requirements of the genre.

Industry Implications

The move signals a significant shift in Amazon's broader gaming strategy, effectively marking its exit from the MMO business. The transition highlights the immense difficulty of sustaining long-term growth for live service games, even for a corporation with the vast infrastructure and financial resources of Amazon. By returning these titles to their original creators, Amazon avoids the total shutdown of the games while offloading the operational burden of maintaining complex, persistent virtual worlds.

What to Watch

As the 2026 and 2027 deadlines approach, the industry will be watching how the hand-off affects the player experience. While the games will continue to exist, the shift in publishing partners often brings changes to account management and service delivery. It remains to be seen if Amazon will attempt any further entries into the multiplayer space or if this retreat marks a permanent move toward different gaming verticals. The transition underscores a broader trend where the operational costs of maintaining global live services are increasingly shifted back to the primary developers who possess the deepest technical knowledge of the game's architecture.