Calling all LOTR nerds! Amazon Game Studios and Hong Kong-based Leyou Technologies are teaming up to bring us a massively multiplayer online game set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The game will be set before the events in the author’s legendary The Lord of the Rings book series. I. Am. So. Ready.
Last September, Leyou Technologies-owned Athlon Games announced it would develop and publish a video game based on The Lord of the Rings, thanks to a licensing agreement with Middle-earth Enterprises, a division of Saul Zaentz Co. The company owns the exclusive worldwide rights to Tolkien’s books. When the plans were unveiled last fall, Athlon was a bit coy about with whom it was developing the game, but now the stars are all alight and we know it’s Amazon.
“We’re committed to bringing customers games of the highest quality, both with our own original [intellectual property] as well as beloved cultural pillars like The Lord of the Rings,” Christoph Hartmann, VP of Amazon Game Studios, said in a statement. “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.”
The video game will be developed jointly for both PC and consoles. Amazon will market and publish the video game globally, excluding China, which will be managed by Leyou.
There’s no release date as of yet, but stay alert!
Photo: Fox
