A series of new job postings related to Amazon's Lord of the Rings MMO in development were first spotted by Gamespot, revealing that the project has barely begun. We first reported last year that Amazon was partnering with Chinese publisher Leyou Technology Holdings on a F2P Tolkien MMO unrelated to the TV series also in development.

The game had been known since 2018, before Amazon's involvement, but these latest posts suggest a project that has barely gotten off the ground.

The Senior Animator position will "work with the Art Director and Combat Design Lead on the navigation, combat, and storytelling foundation of the upcoming MMO based on The Lord of the Rings." The Art Director simply has to set up a "world-class team" and the Character Animator has to come up with an "art style for the game" that is "different" from "previous games and movies. In a similar style, the UI lead and senior environment artist are listed, but does anyone else feel like this all smells like an in-house reboot?

This is just my speculation, but aside from the Twitch acquisition, Amazon's recent track record in gaming is very poor. The company's famed internal processes have so far produced only generic and costly failures such as the recently cancelled Crucible. This seems odd given the obvious resources the company has and how well it is doing in areas such as Prime Video.

The job posting doesn't provide any real details about what to expect from the game, which is not surprising since Amazon probably doesn't even know at this point; creating an MMO is not easy, and the company has a lot of work to do. Depending on who you ask, World of Warcraft was four to five years in development, and that was at the turn of the millennium. Who knows what goes on behind the scenes, but if this game is released before I die, I will eat my ring of power.