Project Trident Shut Down by Amazon Games Studios After AI Push
More and more studios shut downs and project cancellations are happening, and the most recent one is from Amazon Games Studios. Reported by Eurogamer, news came out that Project Trident shut down after AI push.
According to anonymous staff interviews, Amazon Games Studio laid off multiple teams and even cancelled an internal project, known as Project Trident, back in October 2025. And the interviews claim that there was a company-wide push to incorporate AI into games, and even after complying, they were still laid off.
Project Trident was supposedly a Shadow of the Colossus-style action game where players would have to topple Jotuns, navigating their huge forms with flying mounts and grapping hoooks. And sources say that “everybody was excited for it” internally.
But apparently, mid-2024, Amazon allegedly instituted an AI mandate, and a source claimed that there was a hefty demande to come up with something that pushes AI into the video game, or get “more than likely shut down.” Eurogamer reports that they were also only given two years to make it, which resulted in the developers pivoting to an entirely different concept. According to the sources, this led to a Helldivers-like 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 lisfted, and the team moved to a third idea – a singleplayer game where you talk to LLMs to fire off special moves or convince prisoners to join your cause. According to Eurogamer, it was close to demonstratable.
Unfortunately, the team wasn’t able to present their project like planned. Amazon forced the team to include AI, pushed them into chaging their ideas to work with the deadline, and then laid them off.
“I think we did discover the best ways and the worst ways that [generative AI implementation] can happen,” the source said. Yet, Amazon “laid off everyone that was an expert in the best and worst ways to implement AI in regards to game developement.”
While the constant lay offs and cancellations are hard to hear, it’s important to share and understand these stories.
