Remember how Amazon Game Studios announced it was taking in-development MMORPG New World’s always-on alpha offline last May? According to the studio, the game was taken down so Amazon could “design major new features” that were “large in scope and create changes to the world that could be disruptive.” Even at the time, it sounded ominous, as MMOs developed this way often suffer delays or are abandoned (like Amazon’s own Breakaway, which was ultimately canceled).

Anyhow, as we noted, the servers went offline as promised, then in July Amazon announced it was working the new free-to-play Lord of the Rings MMO on a special collaboration with Leyou Technologies, and then Amazon’s social media went quiet except to reply to promise the team is still hard at work on the game and suggesting the forum outage was part of an upgrade and that “everything is going great.”

It’d be lovely to be able to confirm said greatness, especially since in our hands-on we rather liked the game, but what we can do instead is note that Amazon’s New World Twitter account has returned to life again, which we’re taking as a good sign.

For the last three days, it’s posted brief clips of a tree, emblazoned with a V, IV, and III.

No, we don’t know exactly what it means, but it sure does seem like we’re counting down to something, doesn’t it? Like… maybe Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards on December 12th? Seems like a reasonable guess – and another reason to watch if you needed one.