Amazon is Making a Lord of the Rings MMORPG
Game development is a fairly new project for Amazon, but they certainly aren’t playing it safe. Amazon Game Studios has announced that they, along with Leyou Technologies & Middle-Earth Enterprises, are developing a Lord Of The Rings MMORPG based off the literary trilogy of fantasy books by J.R.R Tolkien.
The MMORPG will be free to play and feature a Middle Earth that stays true to the books, rather than the Peter Jackson movies. AGS vice president Christoph Hartmann highlighted the development team’s enthusiasm for the authors work, saying:
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. . .
Middle Earth: Shadow of War chose to take inspiration from the books, too
Amazon has compiled a crack team of experts who have previously worked on popular MMO’s like Everquest, Destiny, Planetside and World of Warcraft to develop the game, making sure it’s in safe hands. Amazon is putting a lot of stock into the Lord of the Rings licence. They are currently making a TV show based on the fantasy epic, but have insisted that the two projects are unrelated.
Lord of the Rings has seen something of a resurgence in gaming with Monolith’s Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor & its sequel, Middle Earth: Shadow Of War; a game which we described in our review as “filled to the brim with content & very fun”.
Details are thin on the ground, but we do know that the game will be coming to both PC & console. We may possibly hear more at this year’s Gamescom or perhaps Amazon will follow Google’s lead and host their own event, showcasing the MMORPG and any other games they’re working on.
