Amazon reportedly had a studio pivot away from a game 'everyone was excited by' to make something with more AI stuffed in it, then laid them all off anyway

There are a lot of ways to get laid off in the games industry—make a good game, make a bad game, start making a game that isn't exciting. Start making a game that your boss actively loves and get told to jog on, anyway. Your boss wears a hat. You know, normal and healthy stuff.

One more grim red X—the kind you put on doors during a plague—painted on the games industry bingo card is a recent report from Eurogamer, who spoke to multiple sources at Amazon Games about the ill-fated Project Trident. Said sources asked to remain anonymous, but the picture they paint is deeply grim.

Initially, the report states, Project Trident was a Shadow of the Colossus-style action game where players would have to topple Jotuns, navigating their huge forms with flying mounts and a grappling hook. It sounds like good fun, and sources tell the site that "everybody was excited by it" internally.

Then disaster struck. Those same sources told the website that, mid-2024, Amazon allegedly instituted an "AI mandate".

For Project Trident, this mandate had come right before their original Colossus-style game was to be pitched—with one source claiming that there was a hefty implied demand (as they were the first to be told) to come up with something that hamfists AI into a videogame, or get "more than likely shut down".

It gets worse. Eurogamer reports they were given two years to make it (basically nothing in videogame development time), resulting in a pivot to an entirely different concept that'd be actually manageable. This led to a Helldivers-esque game with "roguelite gameplay of drop in, drop out, talk with AI for missions and some story stuff. Rinse, repeat.

"We had some fun with it, but almost everyone kept wishing we didn't have to do this and were working on the Colossus version instead."

Halfway through development, the deadline was lifted, and the team shuffled along to a third idea—a singleplayer game where you could talk to LLMs to fire off special moves or convince prisoners to join your cause. This thing was, according to Eurogamer's sources, close to being demonstratable, ready to show off a demo in the first half of 2026.

You're reading this article because Amazon laid off 14,000 people late 2025.

So, to summarise—Amazon reportedly had a team working on a game, cajoled them into making something different to appease the "more AI" graft, that team got close to making something it could show off, and then everybody involved was laid off. I wish I could say I was shocked, but I'm just exhausted.

"I think we did discover the best ways and the worst ways that [generative AI implementation] can happen," and yet, "[Amazon] laid off everyone that was an expert in the best and worst ways to implement AI in regards to game development."

Obviously, the specifics are more complex—but I can't shake this eerie feeling that Amazon put this poor dev team through the wringer, only to toss out the work they'd put in at the wringer factory. Like a lot of these speculative AI projects, nobody can be said to've learnt anything and a whole lot of money was, apparently, wasted.

In a comment supplied to Eurogamer, Amazon gaming head Jeff Gattis writes: "AI was not the reason behind role reductions in Games. Those changes were the result of a strategic shift in our business and a refocus on the areas where Amazon can deliver the most value to players.

"Great games are made by talented people and we think AI should expand what's possible. We remain focused on using these technologies thoughtfully and responsibly, always guided by the creativity and judgment of our teams. We're proud of what our teams are creating, and we look forward to sharing more of what they've been building soon."

If these sources are to be believed, I don't know if Amazon can be said to've been "guided by the creativity and judgement of our teams". The picture painted looks like quite the opposite, but hey—I'm not a top executive at Amazon, so I don't have the industry wondercraft and mental prowess to think I could compete with Steam.

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