Image credit: Amazon Games

Amazon Game Studios’ hero sports brawler Breakaway is essentially canceled but may reemerge in some form later, two people familiar with plans for the game tell Kotaku.


No layoffs are planned at the moment for the internet shipping giant’s gaming arm, but the game is on “indefinite hiatus,” a source said.

UPDATE (1:51pm): In a post on the Breakaway website today, Amazon confirms portions of our report, writing that the team plans to “take the time to iterate and evolve Breakaway’s core gameplay” for an indefinite amount of time. Original article follows:


Breakaway, which was announced on Sept. 29, 2016 as the first offering from Amazon Game Studios, has had several public tests over the past few months. Amazon held its most recent public alpha weekend for Breakaway on September 28, but since the end of that final test, there has been no news about the game.

The four-on-four sports brawler aimed to combine elements of games like Rocket League and Overwatch, as well as integrating Twitch features like a broadcast match builder, allowing streamers to set up lobbies to play with their audience.

This is a bad sign for Amazon, which has attempted to make a big splash in the gaming world but has not yet released any substantial games. Over the years, Amazon has launched game studios in San Diego and Seattle, developed its own video game engine after giving big bucks to Crytek, and hired big-name designers like Portal director Kim Swift and Far Cry 2 director Clint Hocking, both of whom left Amazon without shipping a single product.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Additional reporting by Jason Schreier.