Amazon’s making a Lord of the Rings MMO set pre-trilogy

Amazon in the present day revealed the long-rumored Lord of the Rings MMO that’s in the works is being developed in collaboration with its inside Amazon Game Studios — which means we’ll quickly get each a new Rings sport and that TV present it’s already revealed.

There’s no phrase but on a story or setting. Amazon Game Studios VP Christoph Hartmann stated in a assertion, “Tolkien’s Middle-earth is one of the richest fictional worlds in historical past, and it offers our workforce of skilled MMO builders — from the identical studio growing New World — large alternative to play and create.”

Big information: We’re working with Leyou to develop and publish a free-to-play MMO based mostly on The Lord of the Rings world for consoles and PC. https://t.co/1KxddnBMpo pic.twitter.com/Cr7PrN6dVl

— Amazon Game Studios (@AMZNGameStudios) July 10, 2019

We already knew the sport was in growth — particulars first surfaced final yr, although it’s been comparatively quiet on that entrance since and the sport’s seemingly nonetheless in the early phases of growth. But now we all know Amazon’s throwing its assets into the sport, we are able to hope it’ll see a big enhance in high quality and dimension it won’t in any other case have had.

This wouldn’t be the first MMO set in Tolkien’s universe, and even the just one — Lord of the Rings Online is, so far as I do know, nonetheless round. Still, the in-game lore spans a number of hundreds of years, so if Amazon needs to distinguish its sport from the earlier providing, it may at all times set it throughout a completely different time interval. When the sport was first revealed final September, a spokesperson for Middle-Earth Enterprises (which owns the identify rights to Tolkien’s works) stated it will be about “exploring epic areas in Middle-earth throughout the years resulting in the occasions of The Lord of the Rings.”

According to a spokesperson, the sport is being developed in collaboration with Leyou, the Chinese firm that owns Warframe developer Digital Extremes and which, oddly, was a poultry agency. Leyou’s publishing department, Athlon Games, is run by Dave Miller, who labored with Warner Bros on one other Tolkien-branded sport, Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

It’s not a big shock Amazon is seeking to squeeze as a lot as it may out of the Tolkien license. There aren’t very many fantasy franchises with that stage of name-recognition, and the latest success of Shadow of Mordor has confirmed there’s positively a marketplace for LotR-branded video games. Around a decade-and-a-half in the past, a complete slew of Tolkien video games sprang up after the launch of the movies — many fairly glorious, although some have since disappeared. (Anyone keep in mind Guardians of Middle-earth?)

Supposedly the sport and the Lord of the Rings TV present Amazon’s additionally engaged on may have no connection to one another, regardless of being developed at roughly the identical time. Given how lengthy it may take to develop an MMO, I wouldn’t be shocked if the present…