It looks like gamers will soon be able to take a trip back into Middle-earth. Amazon Game Studios has announced that it’s working on a new Lord of the Rings free-to-play MMO for PC and consoles.
Amazon’s involvement in the new MMO shouldn’t come as a surprise. The company is currently working on a new TV-series based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s works for Amazon Prime. However, according to a report by Entertainment Weekly, the game won’t be directly connected to the new show.
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The new TV series from Amazon takes place during the so-called “Second Age,” thousands of years before the events portrayed in the books and films. This could indicate that the MMO will instead take place during the more familiar time period shown in the latter.
For the MMO, Amazon is partnering with Leyou Technologies Holdings Limited. The latter should be familiar to gamers as the parent company of Digital Extremes, developers of the free-to-play online stealth shooter Warframe.
In regard to their partnership, Leyou CEO Alex Xu stated that their “combined resources and expertise will result in a beautiful and compelling game that customers will love and play for years to come.”
Additionally, Leyou also owns Athlon Games, who previously announced its own Lord of the Rings project last year. This new announcement seems to be that same game, but this time with Amazon’s backing. Specifically, the team behind Amazon’s own MMO New World seems to be providing assistance with its development.
“Tolkien’s Middle-earth is one of the richest fictional worlds in history, and it gives our team of experienced MMO developers — from the same studio developing New World — tremendous opportunity to play and create,” stated Amazon Game Studios vice president Christoph Hartmann. “We have a strong leadership team in place to helm this new project, and we’re actively growing our team to help build this incredible experience.”
Amazon did not state when the Lord of the Rings free-to-play MMO would be released. That said, it’ll likely drop around the same time the new TV series premieres.
