Amazon's New World Shuts Down January 2027 - Facepunch Offers $25M to Save It?

Amazon’s New World is entering its final legs, three months after the gaming division announced no more new content would be made for the game, while also quietly canceling the Lord of the Rings MMO that was in development. Yesterday, Amazon gave New World an official end date, clarifying servers will go offline forever on January 31, 2027. 

New Management?

However a hero has emerged to potentially keep the game running. Alistair McFarlane COO and Company Director at Facepunch, the British developers behind Rust and Garry’s Mod, tweeted a $25 million ‘offer’, adding: “games should never die." Whether or not McFarlane is serious remains to be seen, however a professional game studio picking up the game would be the best case scenario to keeping New World alive.

New World’s cancellation last year was a bit of a shock, with the game’s population spiking upwards, and the latest season, Nighthaven, being well received by players. Following the cancellation, there had been discussion from those playing on how to keep the game going. Before McFarlane “stepped in” (as of writing this, McFarlane has not responded to any inquiries about the seriousness of his tweet), the most logical step was fans spinning up a private server of New World.

The private server approach has worked for cancelled MMOs in the past, with the most famous being City of Heroes. After NCSoft shut down the game in 2012, several private servers spun up. Eventually one emerged called Homecoming and NCSoft granted an official license to host the game in 2024. The ability for any future private server for New World would rely on source code leaking, as it did for City of Heroes in 2019, to allow fans to create an authentic experience. For now, fans have one last year to enjoy the game while waiting to see if a potential buyer like McFarlane is serious.

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