Amazon Game Studios staff have highlighted inadequacies in the company’s Lumberyard game engine as a major factor behind the developer’s recent woes.
As we reported, Amazon Game Studios has just embarked on a round of staff cuts. Now, a number of Amazon Game Studios developers have spoken anonymously to the (paywalled) Wall Street Journal pointing the blame at Amazon Game Studios’ in-house Lumberyard game engine.
The Amazon Game Studios employees alleged that Lumberyard was not constructed with developing multiplayer games in mind. One described the process of developing team-based brawler Breakaway – which was cancelled last year without seeing the light of day – as like: “Driving a train while the tracks were still being laid.” Another employee said of the Lumberyard team: “They’re still ironing out the kinks of what it means to own and maintain your own engine.”
According to the article, the problems with Lumberyard are so ingrained that Amazon Game Studios has decided to allow its in-house team to use other game engines. So far, the only games built using Lumberyard to have progressed as far as release are Amazon’s The Grand Tour and Coffence, from Sweet Bandit Studios.
Hopefully, Amazon Games Studios’ acknowledgment of Lumberyard’s problems will allow it to get back on track; it is readying two games for release: the empire-building New World and third-person action game Crucible. For more information, keep an eye on Amazon Game Studios’ website.
