Lord of the Rings MMO announced from the makers of New World

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Amazon Games has announced it’s reached an agreement with Embracer Group to make a brand new MMO game based on the Lord of the Rings.

The as-yet-unnamed title promises to be an “open-world MMO adventure set in a persistent world set in Middle-earth, featuring the beloved stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings literary trilogy,” reads the official announcement. The game is currently in the early stages of production, so it’s early days yet, but it’ll be helmed by Amazon Games Orange County studio, who are the studio behind 2021 hit New World.

The game will also be released on both PC and consoles – with Amazon Games publishing and Embracer Group as the IP rights holder to the Lord of the Rings series that they picked up late last year. It’s interesting to note that the announcement makes clear the game will also include the stories from The Hobbit prequel book – as previous works have mostly been based around the well known Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Of course it’s not the first shake at a Lord of the Rings MMO – far from it. Back in 2007 Daybreak Game Company released their Lord of the Rings Online – which is still going to this day as a free to play title on PC. It’s not clear what the fate of that game will be, or if Amazon’s project will take the name. Either way, it’s also not the first time Amazon’s attempted a LOTR MMO either – originally announcing a game that would’ve been set before Frodo’s famous journey in 2018 – but that project was itself cancelled in 2021.

As part of this latest announcement, Amazon Games vice president Christoph Hartmann had the following words: “Bringing players a fresh take on The Lord of the Rings has long been an aspiration for our team, and we’re honored and grateful that Middle-earth Enterprises is entrusting us with this iconic world. We’re also pleased to be expanding our relationship with Embracer Group following our Tomb Raider deal last year, as they’ve proven to be excellent collaborators.”

It’s also worth noting that Amazon are also behind the recent LOTR TV series The Rings of Power on their Prime Video service. However, this game will be ‘unrelated’ to the events which take place in that series, sadly. There’s no release date for this new Lord of the Rings MMO at this early stage – but more will be revealed “at a later date”. For now, we’ll have to wait and see.

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Ben Borthwick

Ben Borthwick is the News Editor for VideoGamer. He's a fan of action adventure games, music games and especially comedic games like the Monkey Island series.