It's been a rough time for Lord of the Rings video game fans; the last few titles have been middling to poor, including Return to Moria, Tales of the Shire, and of course, Gollum.
If the rumours are true, however, the next major game in the franchise has the potential to turn around those fortunes.
As reported over on Insider Gaming, a new game in the Lord of the Rings universe is in the works, and has been for "some time" — hardly a surprise, but that's what its sources are saying.
Perhaps most interesting is that those sources claim the game will be a third-person action title designed in part to "compete with Hogwarts Legacy", which was obviously a massive commercial success.
The game is said to be in talks to secure funding from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, which would allegedly afford the development a sum of roughly $100 million. This deal has yet to close, and is currently being funded internally, according to the report.
Embracer Group controls the IP in the video game space, and a game studio named Revenge is apparently involved in the development, among others. Embracer and Revenge declined to comment on the matter.
The Lord of the Rings has a patchy history in games, so it'll be interesting to see whether this alleged title can win back fans.
While we have to treat this as a rumour for now, a new game in the franchise is hardly a far-fetched idea; we imagine we'll see it in the years to come.
Would you like to see The Lord of the Rings return to third-person action? Tell us in the comments section below.
[source insider-gaming.com]
Comments 49
Remember what happened to the Wonder women game.....
@Oram77 yeah but better that we remember Shadow of Mordor
Eh I wish they would set games in different ages. Way more wiggle room to work with. Wish there was a new RTS game.
If its made in the same vain as Hogwarts Legacy count me in.
I would be interested if this didn't involve Embracer Group.
There’s a whole history of middle earth for them to choose from, a title in the second age during Sauron’s rise of power could be awesome to experience in a video game
Good lord - more like good luck, competing with Hogwarts Legacy which by now must be one of the highest selling games this gen, and $100m does not sound enough!
Ah yes... the popular strategy of "if they got lightning in a bottle, we can too!". It always goes well...
Gollum 2 lets go
I would rather remasters of the Third Age and Return of the King then anything new as i don't trust them.
God i hate how tainted Tolkien's work has become. TLOTR Trilogy is a masterpiece and some good games spawned around then but everything after has ranged from mid (The Hobbit) to downright awful (Rings of Power).
@Uromastryx A mid AC clone with Arkham combat saved by the overhyped nemesis system.
Since the Lord of the Rings is my favorite fiction of all time, I'll always be pulling for a successful game. Shadow of Mordor and to a lesser extent War were fantastic games and it's been such a bummer to see the IP squandered since they were released.
@DennisReynolds I don't know if I've ever been more disappointed in a TV show than Rings of Power. Some of the best visuals with the absolute worst writing.
My dream would be for Larian to do something the IP.
Cool, I love Lord of the Rings! Really enjoyed the two Shadow of… games and even picked up War in the North the other day on PS3 as I was fancying a game set in Middle-earth… maybe I’ll just wait for this to release now though.
@Hapless Dude, I pray every day that we get a remaster of those games! Absolutely PEAK!
My instant reaction to the title was "oooh, yes!" And then within seconds my brain processed it and asked "will it though? Will it really compete with Hogwarts Legacy, or are you just trying to sell it to investors"
And would you look at that. The rumours have come from a sales pitch, rather than from anything to do with the actual game being good in any way.
It still baffles me apart from the few exceptions that we still dont have a true lord of the rings hope world game.
We have the indepth lore of the world.
We have the history written.
We have the entire map already detailed
We have each regions, clearly marked and who lives where.
An entire game is literally written for you, all someone has to do is create it so pretty much everything that a pre production team has to do is already done for them.
And yet here we are and what did we get?
Golum? Hahahaha
We have had some great linear games though and a pretty decent rts game out of it.
But still we need a hogwarts legacy quality game for this franchise
@wildcat_kickz Honestly i don't think the show has any redeeming qualities. I'm not even a fan of the visuals felt feel too clean and fake.
Genuinely, saying “you want to compete with Hogwarts Legacy” is a ridiculous statement unless it was from the same publisher and studio. It’s one of the most successful games of all time. It’s like an open world game claiming it’ll compete with GTA. Unless it’s near completion and people have played it and said “wow this is as good as Hogwarts” it’s stupid. Also LOTR whilst a massive massive name and franchise doesn’t have the same mass draw HP does. Even Star Wars games (very good ones) didn’t sell like HP did. It was an excellent game with a widespread appeal from the IP.
I just want an open world Middle-Earth, is that too much to ask!?
Don’t play with my heart
It can't be that hard to make an RPG with an original story set in middle earth. That's what we have always wanted.
Why are there a million other games that can do that sans the setting, but lord of the rings can't?
@graymamba I'll argue that war in the north was a top 20 couch co-op game in its era. It has a game breaking bug or two but once you know how to avoid it, it's a damn good time
@DennisReynolds We may be a bit spoiled by the masterpiece that is the Jackson trilogy, though I agree that everything looked too clean - especially the clothes. That said, I actually really loved Numenor's look. The Greco-Roman aesthetic was a nice touch, in my opinion. It really is too bad that the writing on the show is probably the worst I've seen in a long time. Turned Celebrimbor into a feckless idiot.
Let's just see what happens with this one... oh, it got cancelled.
As good as this would be they should just remaster The Third Age and War in the North.
Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War were both great game although they only allowed players to explore Mordor.
Lego LOTR also deserves a remaster.
I’m not sure if we really need a LOTR Hogwarts Legacy rival though
yes yes yes a million times yes please yes
@Smackosynthesis War in the north was great. Felt like an updated/ ps3 version of the old hack and slash Baldur's Gate games.
Would like to see more games of that ilk this gen, but seems it's of an age never to be revisited.
For me, Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit is about going on an adventure.
I didn't like the Shadow of Mordor due to the small self-contained world.
Hogwarts is a classic example of that design, but that for me was well suited to the franchise which did take place in a relatively confined area.
Rather than a big open world, I'd want an LOTR game to be set along a narrow corridor that for example was one tenth of the height of Skyrim's map, but 30 times wider as you journey from one side to the other, and encountering a wide variety of terrain, impasses and strange creatures along the way.
I've been obsessed with lord of the rings online lately, on pc obviously. Easily the best middle earth game experience out there in my opinion, though the dated mechanics may put some off.
I've read rumours that it's KCD devs Warhorse Studios working on it...... Probably safe hands to avoid a Rings of Power style atrocity.
@DennisReynolds third age was great
@J2theEzzo there was one this gen but it didn't do well. It was just called dark alliance I think
LOTR sure feels like a franchise where it should be possible to produce more brilliant games than what they've been doing recently. The Jackson movie games were fine, but I really liked the turn-based game The Third Age back in the PS2 era. That was a weird storyline, basically just a knock-off fellowship following behind the true fellowship, but the game was good fun.
@Smackosynthesis Yeah, on PS4 it was. But they tried to make it play like God of War, not like the old ones, so I left it.
After the monetization of Shadow of War, I kind of don't care until WB can recognize that's generally not well received by consumers.
@Balosi 17 year Lotro veteran here and I agree. There’s some jank and shortcomings there due to how old the game is but I absolutely adore the area and class design specially. It’s the only persistent game I’ve stuck around.
Yeah alright. Take my f’in money. I will buy. Heck, I bought Gollum knowing how gollum-like it was. Couldn’t get past the first two chapters, but I’m a chump when it comes to LOTR. Reading the comments, I’m sure some of y’all are with me…
I hope we get cockney orcs again.
Sounds good to me, though I actually really enjoyed Return to Moria. Usually I tend to only play survival games co-op but I played Moria through to the end on my own.
Start as a lowly goblin then slowly work your way to lordship in the magical tower of torture. (that is definitely not for torture).
Loved Hogwarts Legacy. Love the LotR franchise. For some reason though, I have little faith in this game.
Alright, but make it into a point-and-click adventure in the style of the 70s LotR animated series... I double-dare you, devs!
@DennisReynolds "A mid AC clone with Arkham combat saved by the overhyped nemesis system."
I feel seen.😂 I don't think the Mordor games are bad or anything, but good lord people act as if they're genre defining games and its like the f**k are you on about😂😂😂.
@homelesscretin Yeah they aren't terrible or anything but i can't say i care for them that much either.
@graymamba I would love a War in the North Remaster myself.That was an excellent title!!
@DennisReynolds People call it an AC clone however it is much closer to the new AC games than the old ones and it actually predates the new AC games.
@ButWhy Its barely anything like the RPG AC games.
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