Amazon Exits MMO Publishing: Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty Return to Original Creators in 2027

The Two Transitions: What Happened and When

Throne and Liberty (NC / FirstSpark Games)

• Transition start: Q4 2026
• Agreement termination: February 1, 2027
• New publisher: NC (formerly NCSoft) and its subsidiary FirstSpark Games, the actual developers of the game
• Platforms: Currently on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. It will shift to NC's unified online service, though specific platform details are still emerging . NC has stated that player account information will remain consistent across platforms .

Lost Ark (Smilegate RPG)

• Transition timing: Early 2027 (no exact date set)
• New publisher: Smilegate RPG, the original developer and current operator of the Korean version
• Platform: Stays on Steam; no change to your Steam account is needed .

What This Means for Players: The Good, The Uncertain, and The Ugly

Character Progression and Account Data (The Good)

• Lost Ark: Characters, inventory, game data, and wallet balances will be preserved. Players will need to link their Steam account to a new Smilegate account when the process is announced . Amazon's FAQ explicitly states "no changes will be made to your Steam account, your characters, progression or inventory" .
• Throne and Liberty: NC has confirmed that player data and real-money currencies will survive the transition. No restart is required .

Content Updates (The Good — Possibly the Best News)

Both Smilegate and NC are the actual developers of these games. The Western versions will no longer be subject to Amazon's separate patch scheduling, monetization balance, or content cadence . Players can expect the global version to align more closely with the Korean version's update schedule and event pacing, which has historically been faster and richer . For many long-time players, this is the primary reason to be optimistic.

Language Support (The Uncertain)

• Lost Ark: Amazon's official FAQ says "no changes to your Steam account, your platform, or the languages that are supported" . However, Smilegate has not yet detailed whether Western language support (English, French, German, Spanish) will remain identical after the handover . SteamDB data for Lost Ark currently lists support for English, Spanish, German, and French (with varying levels of audio support) . It is unclear whether Smilegate will maintain all four or reduce the roster.
• Throne and Liberty: NC plans a "unified" global service, which could mean consolidated language support under one version . The current Steam version supports nine languages including English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Traditional Chinese .

Region Restrictions (The Uncertain)

• Lost Ark has historically been region-locked on Steam, unavailable in many Asian countries and some others . It is unclear whether Smilegate will adjust those locks. The official Amazon FAQ from 2021 listed specific supported countries in North America and Europe , and the game remains geographically restricted as of 2025 .
• Throne and Liberty already expanded its global Steam service to include Korea and Taiwan in September 2025, suggesting NC is comfortable with cross-region play . However, in April 2026, FirstSpark Games restricted access to the Korean version for players from Russia and several CIS countries, citing a new regional publisher . The picture is mixed.

Community and Customer Support (The Short-Term Headache)

Community channels (Discord, forums, social media) will move from Amazon to the developers. Customer support, refund policies, and the in-game store operator will also change . Both companies have said they aim for a smooth transition, but temporary service disruptions during the account-linking period are possible .

Amazon's Broader Retreat from MMO Publishing

This is the final act of Amazon Games' withdrawal from the MMO space. In October 2025, Amazon cut roughly 14,000 jobs company-wide, with "significant role reductions" at Amazon Games, including the discontinuation of most first-party AAA MMO development . New World, Amazon's own MMO, was shut down earlier .

Amazon Games leadership has stated the company is pivoting away from large-scale MMO publishing toward party games and smaller titles . With both Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty handed back, Amazon no longer operates any major MMOs in the West. The company's remaining gaming efforts include the Luna cloud platform and a publishing division focused on smaller, non-MMO titles .

Key Open Questions

• Exact transition dates: Lost Ark's is "early 2027"; Throne and Liberty's publishing agreement terminates on February 1, 2027 . The precise day for each account migration has not been set.
• Account linking details: The specific process and timeline for linking Steam to a Smilegate or NC account will be announced closer to the transfer .
• Regional availability: Whether formerly restricted regions gain or lose access under the new publishers is not yet fully clear. For Throne and Liberty, NC's recent expansion to Asia suggests openness, while the CIS restrictions suggest the opposite .
• Cash shop and currency: Existing wallet balances transfer, but it is unknown whether pricing, tax handling, or currency types will change under Korean publishers .

The Bottom Line for Players

For most players, the transition should be neutral to positive. Your progress is safe, and the biggest upside is that content updates may finally come faster and more consistently now that the developers control the Western versions directly. The main risks are around language support (will smaller Western languages be maintained?) and regional access (could some countries be locked out?).

Amazon's exit from MMO publishing marks the end of an era — one in which the company tried and largely failed to compete in the genre. For Lost Ark and Throne and Liberty, the handoff to their original creators is a second chance.