Amazon is re-launching its Amazon Luna service later this year with a new design and new features, including a rotating library of games available to Amazon Prime subscribers, playable through Luna’s cloud services.
In a long blog post on the Amazon Games site, Amazon announces the overhaul coming to Amazon Luna while touting its belief that “gaming needs a rethink.” It frames the fact that there are more users playing games on mobile devices than there are on PCs or consoles as the videogame industry’s failure to “welcome the 100s of millions of people who want to experience the magic of playing games on the big screen but feel left out – those who don’t see themselves as ‘gamers,’ those who don’t want to spend a fortune on hardware, or those who just want something simple, social, and fun.”
Without exploring the possibility that the 100s of millions of people who play games on their phones might possibly prefer to play the select few games they enjoy that way, the blog post continues to introduce “a completely redesigned and reimagined Amazon Luna that combines innovative social party games with amazing blockbusters to make every night in your house the perfect game night to share with your family and friends.”
A new trailer shared along with the post shows the new Luna in action, which will be an added feature for Amazon Prime subscribers “at no additional cost” to the current subscription price they already pay.
The two key features coming in this redesign include GameNight, a library of Amazon Luna-exclusive titles mostly comprised of party and social games that can be played through your phone, just like the widely popular JackBox Party titles. Its featured launch title is ‘Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg’, which is “a human-built, AI-powered improv courtroom game where players invent outrageous characters, spin wild stories, and do whatever it takes to defend their testimonies before Judge Snoop Dogg.”
There will be a total of 25 titles launching for GameNight whenever the new Luna arrives, with new variations of Angry Birds, Exploding Kittens, Flappy Golf Party, Taboo, Clue, and Ticket to Ride, to name a few.
The other key feature coming to this new version of Amazon Luna is a new rotating library of games, including Hogwarts Legacy, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Dave the Diver, Dead Island 2, Borderlands 3, and more, all playable through the cloud. There’s a base library of games available through your regular Amazon Prime subscription, but there’s also a premium tier to the new Amazon Luna that’ll get you other big titles, including “EA Sports FC 25, LEGO DC Super Villains, Team Sonic Racing, and Batman: Arkham Knight.”
These titles will all be playable through any Bluetooth-compatible controller, or, of course, an Amazon Luna controller will work.
When Wccftech reviewed Amazon Luna two years ago, we concluded that it was the content, not the hardware and cloud experience, that held it back. This redesign seems to try to address exactly that. But it’s more than lofty for Amazon to try suggesting that “gaming needs a rethink,” as if those who already enjoy games in their own way, whether that’s through consoles, PCs, or mobile devices, are currently doing it wrong.
We’ll see what this overhaul does for Amazon Luna when it arrives sometime later in 2025.