Seattle, January 16, 2026 – The world of Aeternum is officially on borrowed time.

Amazon Games today announced that its massively multiplayer online game, New World: Aeternum, will go offline permanently on January 31, 2027.

For players who have poured countless hours into the game, the news is a stark and final blow, especially as the game was delisted from digital storefronts yesterday, January 15, immediately preventing new purchases.

This isn’t entirely unexpected, of course. Development on New World had already been paused since last October, with no further content updates planned. But a full shutdown, even with a year-long grace period, raises critical questions about the longevity of Amazon’s gaming projects.

After a troubled launch and subsequent re-release as Aeternum, many wondered if the MMO would ever truly find its footing. Now, the answer is unequivocally clear.

For existing players, the timeline for New World: Aeternum‘s demise is firm. While those who purchased the game before yesterday can continue to play, a significant restriction is coming on July 20, 2026, when players will no longer be able to purchase in-game currency or any other items.

Until the final shutdown in early 2027, the development team promises to “continue to monitor bugs and performance to ensure the game runs smoothly,” ensuring a stable, if static, environment for its remaining months.

The development team expressed their gratitude, stating, “We want to thank the players for your dedication and passion… While we are saddened to say goodbye, we’re honoured that we were able to share so much with the community.”

They added, “It has been our pleasure to work on New World and evolve this unforgettable adventure with you all. We look forward to one more year together, and giving this fantastic adventure a sendoff worthy of a legendary hero.” It’s a heartfelt message, but is gratitude enough for a player base that invested time and money into a world that will soon cease to exist?

This shutdown isn’t an isolated incident. It comes in the wake of wider cuts to Amazon’s infrastructure, which affected approximately 14,000 jobs. These “organisational changes,” as Amazon called them, were aimed to “reduce bureaucracy, remove layers, and shift resources.” Was New World: Aeternum simply another casualty of these corporate realignments, deemed no longer aligning with the company’s core strategic focus, or did its performance simply not meet expectations? The game itself had a rocky start, originally slated for an August 2020 release, then delayed to September 2021 for its initial PC launch, followed by the definitive Aeternum version on PC and console in October.

The end of New World: Aeternum is a stark reminder of the challenges faced by even the largest companies in the competitive MMO market. It forces us to ask: what does this mean for Amazon Games’ broader ambitions? And for players, it’s a somber lesson on the ephemeral nature of online worlds.