Amazon Game Studios will return Western territory publishing responsibilities for “Throne and Liberty” and “Lost Ark” to game developers NC and Smilegate, respectively, amid the company’s pivot away from massively multiplayer online games (MMOs).
“As part of our continued strategic evolution, we have made the decision to transition live operations of ‘Lost Ark’ and ‘Throne and Liberty’ back to their respective development studios. We have tremendous respect for the teams at Smilegate and NC, the worlds they’ve built and the passionate communities that have grown around these games,” Amazon Game Studios said in a statement Wednesday. “We’re proud of what we accomplished together and are committed to ensuring a smooth transition for players.”
Amazon’s games division faced a significant number of layoffs last October amid overall company cuts and strategy shifts across the business, seeing the elimination of 14,000 corporate employees. The choice to divest “Throne and Liberty” and “Lost Ark” comes after Amazon has already indicated its plans to pivot from investing more into the MMO space. The internal focus now is on already planned AAA titles, like the upcoming “Tomb Raider” games, and expanding Amazon’s cloud gaming service Luna through the studio’s “game night”-style party games and its licensed-title business.
