Amazon ends active development on New World while promising servers stay live till 2026
Amazon Games has confirmed it will stop active development on its MMO New World, following the recent company-wide layoffs. The studio said Season 10: Nighthaven will serve as the final content drop, and that servers will remain online through 2026 while the team focuses on stabilization and basic support, stating in the official statement that “It is only after much consideration that we've reached this decision.”
The move follows a major restructuring across Amazon that has hit its games division hard. Reporting and company notices show substantial cuts affecting multiple Amazon Games teams, and the broader corporate shift appears to prioritize smaller, cloud-focused, and AI-driven projects over costly first-party MMO roadmaps. For players, the news stops short of an immediate closure: PvE, PvP, and in-game services will continue to operate, and the storefront will remain available, with Amazon providing a minimum notice period should a shutdown be considered beyond 2026.
For the community, the announcement confirms what many dataminers and active players feared after earlier layoffs. New World enjoyed a resurgence earlier this year after substantial reworks and a cross-platform push, but sustaining the schedule and scope of MMO content is expensive. With active player numbers well below the title’s earlier peaks, Amazon judged further investment in fresh seasons and expansions to be unsustainable.
Amazon’s approach is to treat the upcoming seasonal update as the last significant chapter, while shifting remaining staff to maintenance, bug fixes, and player support. The studio explicitly noted it will keep servers running for an extended wind-down period, allowing guilds and long-term players time to finish objectives and archive progress. The company also made recent content, such as Rise of the Angry Earth, free to players as part of the transition. Streamers and community organizers have already begun planning legacy runs and archival events, and questions about refunds, in-game economies, and long-term item availability are trending topics in community threads.
The New World outcome highlights how corporate layoffs ripple into player communities and long-term product plans, and it underscores the high cost of sustaining large-scale online worlds.
Players should expect official patch and compensation details to appear on New World’s channels in the coming weeks. For now, Season 10 is the swan song for active development, and players have through 2026 to finish their goals or prepare for whatever comes next in Amazon’s games strategy.
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