New World is dead. Amazon Games posted an update on October 28, 2025, confirming that development on their flagship MMO has officially ended. Season 10 and the Nighthaven update, which just launched, will be the final content releases for the game. Servers will remain online through 2026, but after that, New World disappears forever. This is what the end of an MMO looks like when the company behind it decides supporting it is no longer sustainable. Just four years after launching to 900,000 concurrent players on Steam, Amazon is pulling the plug.
The Official Statement
Amazon’s announcement tried to soften the blow with gratitude and nostalgia. They reflected on an incredible journey shaped by the dedicated player community, thanked fans for feedback and passion that evolved Aeternum, and expressed deep gratitude for the shared adventure. But the core message was blunt. After four years of steady content updates and a major console release, Amazon reached a point where it’s no longer sustainable to continue supporting the game with new content updates.
The recently launched Season 10 and Nighthaven update serve as the final content release for New World on PC and consoles. That’s it. No more expansions, no more seasons, no more story chapters. Amazon made the Nighthaven update free as a thank you to the community, and they made the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion free for all PC players to ensure everyone can experience the content before the lights go out.
What Happens Now
In the coming months, Amazon will provide more details about what to expect. Their stated intention is to keep servers operating through 2026, allowing the community time to continue adventures in Aeternum. They promise to give at least six months notice before making any changes that impact playability. New World remains available for purchase, in-game currency transactions still work, and PlayStation Plus subscribers can still download the console version.
But make no mistake, this is a death announcement with a delayed execution date. The game is in maintenance mode with a hard expiration somewhere in late 2026. No bug fixes are promised beyond critical issues. No balance patches. No seasonal events. Just a slow wind-down while remaining players say goodbye to a world that won’t exist much longer.
The Layoffs Behind the Decision
This announcement didn’t happen in a vacuum. Hours earlier, reports emerged that Amazon was cutting approximately 14,000 corporate jobs across multiple divisions, with Amazon Games taking particularly severe hits. The Irvine and San Diego studios that developed New World bore the brunt of these layoffs. Employees from both locations confirmed on social media that colleagues were let go, and regular names in New World’s official Discord suddenly vanished.
Amazon’s internal memo explained they were halting a significant amount of first-party AAA game development work, specifically around MMOs. Steve Boom, Amazon’s vice president overseeing Audio, Twitch, and Games, sent staff notification that the company was pivoting away from big-budget MMO development toward cloud gaming through Luna and other strategic priorities. New World became collateral damage in that strategic shift.
The Financial Reality
MMOs are expensive to maintain. They require dedicated live teams to create seasonal content, balance multiplayer systems, moderate communities, maintain servers, and respond to player feedback. When an MMO loses momentum and player counts decline, those costs become harder to justify. Amazon looked at New World’s current engagement numbers, compared them to development costs, and decided the math didn’t work anymore.
This decision becomes even more brutal when you consider New World: Aeternum, the console version, only launched in October 2024. Amazon spent significant resources porting the PC game to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S, marketed it heavily, and now they’re killing the entire project less than a year after that console debut. Console players who bought in expecting years of support are getting barely one year before new content stops and maybe two years before servers shut down completely.
The Rise and Fall
New World launched on September 28, 2021, as Amazon’s most ambitious gaming project yet. It hit a peak of 913,027 concurrent players on Steam, making it one of the biggest MMO launches ever. The colonial fantasy setting, action combat, player-driven economy, and faction warfare created genuine buzz. Here was proof that Amazon could make a real game after years of cancelled projects and Crucible’s embarrassing failure.
But the momentum didn’t last. Within months, concurrent players dropped from over 900,000 to under 100,000. By 2022, the game struggled to maintain 50,000 concurrent players. Patches and expansions brought temporary spikes, but the baseline kept declining. The Rise of the Angry Earth expansion in October 2023 and the console port in October 2024 created brief resurgences, but neither fundamentally reversed the trend.
What Went Wrong
New World launched with serious problems. Endgame content was limited, forcing players to grind the same activities repeatedly. PvP balance was broken with certain builds dominating. The economy suffered from duplication exploits that Amazon took weeks to address. Territory control wars became dominated by mega-companies that new players couldn’t meaningfully challenge. Technical issues plagued the game, including the infamous GPU-frying bug that bricked expensive graphics cards.
Amazon patched aggressively and added content through multiple seasons, but they never recaptured that initial magic. The damage was done. Players who left in those first chaotic months didn’t come back, and negative word-of-mouth prevented new players from trying it. The game earned a reputation as a beautiful but flawed experience that couldn’t hold attention long-term, which is death for an MMO that needs sustained engagement to justify development costs.
A Four-Year Lifespan
Four years is nothing for an MMO. World of Warcraft launched in 2004 and is still getting expansions 21 years later. Final Fantasy XIV rebounded from a disastrous launch to become one of the most successful MMOs currently running. Even smaller MMOs like Guild Wars 2 and The Elder Scrolls Online have maintained consistent player bases for over a decade. New World couldn’t make it past four years before Amazon gave up.
The speed of this shutdown is particularly shocking given Amazon’s resources. This isn’t a struggling indie studio that ran out of money. This is one of the world’s wealthiest companies deciding that an MMO with tens of thousands of daily players isn’t worth supporting. The cold business calculation shows how ruthlessly Amazon evaluates projects. If it’s not meeting internal targets for player engagement and monetization, it gets cut regardless of the community still actively playing.
What This Means for MMO Gaming
New World’s shutdown sends a chilling message to the MMO genre. Even with Amazon’s infinite money and years of development, even with a strong launch and an active community, an MMO can still fail if it doesn’t maintain explosive growth. The bar for success keeps rising, and anything that doesn’t become the next World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV gets abandoned.
This trend has been accelerating. Wildstar shut down in 2018 after just four years. Anthem died in 2021 after only two years. Marvel’s Avengers ended in 2023 after three years. Now New World joins that list of high-profile live service games that launched with huge expectations and died young because they couldn’t maintain player counts at the levels publishers demanded.
The Live Service Problem
Publishers want every game to be a decade-long money printer generating billions through microtransactions. When a live service game has moderate success instead of explosive growth, it gets labeled a failure and shut down. There’s no room for middle-tier MMOs anymore. You either become a phenomenon or you die. New World’s crime wasn’t being a bad game. It was being merely okay.
Player Reactions
The New World community reacted with a mix of anger, sadness, and resignation. Many players saw this coming after the layoff news broke, but confirmation still hurt. Discord servers filled with tributes to the game, screenshots of favorite moments, and complaints about Amazon giving up too easily. Some players blamed the community for being too toxic and driving new players away. Others blamed Amazon for never fixing fundamental design problems.
Console players felt especially betrayed. They bought New World: Aeternum less than a year ago expecting years of support, and now they’re being told the game is dead. Some demanded refunds, though Amazon hasn’t indicated they’ll offer any. PlayStation Plus subscribers who got the game free through their subscription at least didn’t pay extra, but they still invested time expecting a long-term experience.
FAQs
When do New World servers shut down?
Amazon stated servers will remain online through 2026 with at least six months notice before shutdown. This likely means servers will close sometime between mid-2026 and late 2026, though no specific date has been announced.
Will there be any more updates?
No. Season 10 and the Nighthaven update are the final content releases. Amazon will only perform critical maintenance to keep servers running. No new seasons, expansions, story content, or balance patches are planned.
Can I still buy New World?
Yes, New World remains available for purchase on PC and consoles, and in-game currency transactions still work. However, buying a game with a known expiration date in 2026 is not recommended unless you just want to experience what’s there.
Will I get a refund?
Amazon has not announced any refund program. Console players who purchased New World: Aeternum in the past year are particularly frustrated, but no compensation has been offered beyond the free Nighthaven and Rise of the Angry Earth expansions.
Why did Amazon kill New World?
Amazon stated it’s no longer sustainable to support the game with new content updates. This decision came amid massive layoffs affecting 14,000 jobs and a strategic pivot away from AAA MMO development toward cloud gaming and other priorities.
How many people still play New World?
Steam Charts shows New World maintaining between 10,000 and 30,000 concurrent players in recent months, with peaks reaching 50,000-60,000 during content updates. These numbers are healthy for many MMOs but apparently insufficient for Amazon’s expectations.
What happens to my characters and progress?
Your characters and progress remain intact as long as servers are online. Once servers shut down in 2026, everything disappears permanently. There’s no way to preserve your progress or transfer characters elsewhere.
Is the Lord of the Rings MMO also canceled?
The Lord of the Rings MMO that Amazon was developing appears to be among the canceled projects, though Amazon hasn’t explicitly confirmed this. Multiple employees from that project were reportedly laid off during the recent cuts.
What about Lost Ark?
Lost Ark is published by Amazon Games but developed by Smilegate RPG in South Korea. It’s not directly affected by these layoffs and will continue receiving updates. Amazon’s publishing role is different from their development work on New World.
Conclusion
New World deserved better than this. Whatever its flaws, it was a genuinely ambitious MMO built by talented developers who poured years of their lives into Aeternum. It had beautiful environments, satisfying combat, and a dedicated community that stuck around through rough patches hoping Amazon would turn things around. Instead, Amazon looked at their spreadsheets, decided New World wasn’t profitable enough, and shut it down four years after launch while laying off the people who made it. This is what happens when one of the world’s richest companies treats games as quarterly earnings experiments instead of long-term creative projects. When the numbers don’t meet internal targets, everything gets cut regardless of the human cost or the community still actively enjoying the game. For New World players, the next year is about goodbyes. Finishing storylines they never completed. Exploring zones they skipped. Taking screenshots of favorite locations before they vanish forever. The game they invested hundreds or thousands of hours into will disappear, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it except play while they still can. Amazon provided a roadmap for the end. Servers through 2026. Six months notice before the final shutdown. Enough time to make peace with losing a game that, despite everything, meant something to the people who played it. But that doesn’t make watching another MMO die any less depressing. Four years. That’s all Amazon was willing to give New World. In an industry where successful MMOs run for decades, four years is nothing. It’s barely enough time to find footing, build a community, and establish identity. New World never got that chance. Instead, it becomes another cautionary tale about live service games, corporate priorities, and what happens when companies value explosive growth over sustainable success. RIP New World. 2021-2026. You deserved a better ending.