United Kingdom, Oct. 31 -- Amazon's Lord of the Rings MMO has reportedly been cancelled following the recent company's major layoffs.

The news comes after Bloomberg reported that Amazon had cut "a significant amount" of its first-party AAA development work - specifically around MMOs - as part of 14,000 company-wide job losses.

In a supposed internal memo, Amazon vice president Steven Boom described the layoffs as "a difficult but necessary step" as the company scales back investment in its games division.

Among the affected projects is said to be the unannounced Lord of the Rings MMO, which had reportedly been in early development at Amazon's Orange County studio, the same team behind New World.

Former senior gameplay engineer Ashleig...