Amazon Games Hands Throne and Liberty Western Publishing Back to NC

Amazon Game Studios is giving up western publishing duties on Throne and Liberty, the free-to-play MMORPG it has operated outside Asia since October 2024. Developer NC, the South Korean studio formerly known as NCSoft, will run the game directly through its subsidiary FirstSpark Games, with the service migration targeted to complete in the fourth quarter of 2026. Both companies confirmed the handover on August 12, 2026 in coordinated announcements: NC’s official transition notice to players and Amazon’s own update with a detailed FAQ on the game’s western site.

The deal unwinds an arrangement signed on February 22, 2023, when Amazon Games and NCSoft announced that Amazon would publish the MMO across North America, South America, Europe, and Japan on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

NC framed the move as the creator of the game stepping into a more direct operational role. “As the creators of Throne and Liberty, we believe this is the right time to take a more direct role in supporting the game and helping shape its future,” the studio said in its notice. Amazon struck a similar tone, describing the transition as “handing the game back to the developers.”

What the Publishing Handover Actually Transfers

The mechanics of the migration are laid out in Amazon’s FAQ with unusual specificity for a publishing breakup. Publisher, customer support provider, live operations team, support policies, and Terms of Service all move to NC. What does not move: player accounts, characters, progression, inventory, or platform access. Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox users keep their existing accounts and simply accept NC’s Terms of Service on first login after the transition. No reinstallation is required, and all regions and realms stay as they are with no consolidation.

NC is adding its own distribution layer. The game will become available on PURPLE, NC’s PC platform, and players across PURPLE, Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation will share one unified environment with cross-play intact. Cross-progression will work between Steam and PURPLE, but not between any other platform pairing.

In-game currency balances carry over. Lucent, Loyalty Points, Sollant, and Ornate Coins keep their quantity and value, though NC notes that terms of use and expiration policies may change during the migration. Account enforcement history, including bans and suspensions, transfers as well. Support tickets filed with Amazon do not.

The FAQ also spells out the consequences for guilds when a member opts out of the data transfer: the character is removed from the roster, leadership passes by automatic succession if the guild leader opts out, and a guild that loses every member is disbanded. Characters and guilds left with duplicate names after the service integration will be renamed at random and issued a name-change ticket.

The Opt-Out Clause in the Data Transfer

Players who do not want their data moved to NC can opt out at any point until the transition day. Doing so means characters, progression, and inventory do not carry over, and the player’s Amazon Game Studios account data is handled under Amazon’s retention and deletion policies. Anyone who takes no action is migrated automatically and completes an account activation with NC afterward.

On content, both companies say regular updates and bug fixes continue as usual, but major updates such as the in-development Nix update may be held until after the migration to protect the data transition. Several open items, including unclaimed store purchases, pending Auction House listings, and friend and block lists, are marked to be answered closer to the transition date.

Amazon’s MMO Retreat Left NC as the Last Partner Standing

The handover fits a pattern Gaming.net has tracked across Amazon’s games business. The company folded its Luna cloud gaming service into Prime Video in July 2026, and its MMO portfolio has been contracting since late 2025.

Throne and Liberty was the last externally published MMO in that portfolio. Amazon’s publishing agreements also covered Smilegate’s Lost Ark, which it continues to operate in the west. With the NC transition, Amazon’s live-service MMO presence narrows to Lost Ark while NC consolidates global control of its flagship title under one roof, roughly two years after launch. NC already publishes the game directly in Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.

For NC, taking direct control aligns with how the company has historically run its online franchises, including Lineage, Aion, and Blade & Soul, all self-published over multi-decade lifespans. Throne and Liberty was its first major title released across western regions with an external publisher.

The migration is scheduled to complete in the fourth quarter of 2026, with NC promising further player-facing detail through its Service Transition Portal and Amazon committing to update its FAQ as dates and any required player actions are confirmed. Readers can find background on the game in Gaming.net’s Throne and Liberty explainer.