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A massive The Lord of the Rings MMORPG is in development for PC and consoles from Amazon Games.
Publisher Amazon Games has partnered with Embracer Group and is developing a new MMORPG based on J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The new game will be developed by New World studio, Amazon Games Orange County.
New World was once one of the most popular MMORPGs on PC garnering an all-time concurrent player peak of 913,634, according to SteamDB. Unfortunately, since its worldwide launch in September 2021, New World hasn't been able to sustain numbers anywhere near its peak. At the time of writing, New World has a 24-hour peak of just 18,507.
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However, while Amazon Games will at least look to achieve the all-time peak of New World, it will no doubt hope that it will have high sustainability for the long haul, and perhaps The Lord of the Rings licence will help the upcoming MMORPG achieve that level of success.
The new Lord of the Rings MMORPG is said to take place during the Third Age, meaning that it will take place after the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. However, if you might be getting confused with this announcement, in relation to previous projects, there’s a good reason why.
For starters, this new MMORPG has nothing to do with The Lord of the Rings Online which was released in 2007 and is developed by Standing Stone Games. Believe it or not, that game is still going.
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Then in 2020, Amazon Games partnered with Tencent to develop a Lord of the Rings MMORPG, but that project was cancelled the following year. So Amazon is having another crack at Balrog’s whip utilising the J.R.R. universe once more.
Amazon Games vice president Christoph Hartmann said in a statement provided to IGN, that the new game will bring: “Bringing players a fresh take on The Lord of the Rings has long been an aspiration for our team, and we’re honoured and grateful that Middle-earth Enterprises is entrusting us with this iconic world.”
For those concerned that the new Lord of the Rings game will rehash old assets from the cancelled 2021 project, then fear not.
“It's completely new," said Hartmann. "The old project wasn't very long [in] development. It's not that it was a three-year project, it was a fairly small team working on a certain part of the game, but that was not a full-blown production.”
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Hartmann also went on to imply that not only does Amazon intend this to be the “biggest and best” The Lord of the Rings MMORPG, but it will also be faithful to Tolkien’s vision.
“There's nothing changing because we all know the world is set, the characters are set. It's really the freedom we have in terms of gameplay features where now anything is possible, and the limitation is where it's technically possible or not.
"Before, it was like, 'It's a good idea but we can't do it because there's something else going on.' Now, the mission we are on, and the mission Embracer fully supports, Middle-earth Enterprises fully supports, is to make the biggest, best MMO out there based on Lord of the Rings. That's our ambition.”
At this time, the currently untitled The Lord of the Rings MMORPG from Amazon Games doesn't have a release date. However, it’s perhaps safe to assume that it will not only launch on PC but also on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Topics: Amazon, The Lord Of The Rings