Amazon is handing both of its MMOs back to their developers
Amazon Game Studios is getting out of both of the MMOs it published. On 12 August 2026 it announced, in a post about Throne and Liberty, that live operations move to FirstSpark Games and NC from Q4 2026, and in a near-identical post the same day that Lost Ark goes back to Smilegate in early 2027.
Two handovers, side by side
| Throne and Liberty | Lost Ark | |
|---|---|---|
| Going to | FirstSpark Games and NC | Smilegate |
| Amazon's stated timing | Starting Q4 2026 | Starting early 2027 |
| Time Amazon published it | Nearly two years | Nearly five years |
| Exact date given | No | No |
| Shutdown mentioned | No | No |
| Amazon's framing | Handing the game back to the developers | Handing the game back to the developers |
Neither post gives a day, and both use the same phrase about returning the game to the people who made it, which is worth noticing when both were published on the same day.
Our take: what it means for players
A handover is not a shutdown, and we want that stated before anything else, because the two get conflated every time and the conflation costs a game its population.
Both worlds keep running. What changes is who answers when something breaks, who funds the Western localisation, and who decides the store. Neither post says anything about any of that. Our expectation is that an operator with a direct line to the developers ships regional content faster, and that the shop is the thing to watch, because a new operator sets its own pricing and nobody has published theirs.
The uncomfortable read is what these two posts say together, and we will label it as ours rather than Amazon's. Amazon spent nearly five years on one MMO and nearly two on the other, announced both exits on one day, and has New World dated to go offline on 31 January 2027. Neither post gives a reason. Our reading is that this is a judgement about the business of running live MMOs in the West rather than about these three games, and players should weigh it as such rather than as a verdict on the worlds they play in.
What we would ask for is a date. Q4 2026 and early 2027 are quarters, and an account holder with a subscription, a battle pass or an unspent currency balance is entitled to know the day their relationship changes hands. Until one is published, everything downstream of it, including whether balances carry, is a question nobody can answer.
What's next
Both transfers sit on the sunset tracker as handovers rather than shutdowns, with the windows the publishers actually gave and the day we last checked each. New World's shutdown on 31 January 2027 is on the same page.
Common questions
Who will run Throne and Liberty in the West?
FirstSpark Games and NC, from Q4 2026. Amazon Game Studios says it is transitioning live operations and working with NC on the handover. Amazon had published the game in the West for nearly two years.
When does Amazon stop running Lost Ark?
Early 2027, by Amazon's own wording. Smilegate takes over from that point. Amazon had published Lost Ark in the West for nearly five years.
Do these games shut down?
Neither announcement says so. Both describe a transfer of live operations to the original developers, with Amazon saying it is working to minimise disruption. A handover is not a shutdown, and we track the two separately.
Written by 0hp from the publisher's own announcement, linked above, and every specific in it was checked against that page by a second pass before it published. Independent, and not affiliated with the publisher. Dates are announced or labelled as estimates. How this site is written, and how to correct it.
