Announced last month alongside the third Kingdom Come Deliverance game, Warhorse’s new Lord of the Rings/Middle-Earth RPG will be “deeply immersive”. Described as a “passion project” by the studio, the game will boast “interesting characters, memorable places, and of course a strong narrative focus.”
In an interview with The Game Business about publisher Embracer’s larger portfolio, Embracer CEO Phil Rogers explained that the decision to announce the new Lord of the Rings game came after word that Amazon was working on its own game in the fantasy universe.
“You know, there were some rumours about could they be working on a Middle-Earth game,” he said. “We’ve seen lots of stuff online about Amazon working in Middle-Earth. Our view on that was just: ‘let’s just own this right now’. Let’s actually just say, let’s actually say something.”
Alongside reacting to Amazon’s news, the decision to announce the early in-development RPG had two other factors as well. One, Embracer split with a new spin-off dubbed Fellowship Entertainment, and this game’s announcement served as a message of intent. Secondly, Warhorse’s Lord of the Rings RPG had been leaked multiple times already.
While original IPs will come from Fellowship’s portfolio, the group is working predominantly with existing IPs. Using Warhorse’s Lord of the Rings game as an example, Rogers explained that there’s a priority to not disappoint fans whenever the game finally releases.
“Our why has been around, you know, sort of, ‘for the fans’”, the CEO said. “We recognise these IPs, our fans, have expectations, and we’re privileged to work on it in that way. I think, clearly, our core skills are in more single-player games, very rich immersive worlds. I think we’ll go on that journey with our fans.”
Right now, little is known about Warhorse’s upcoming Lord of the Rings RPG other than the fact that the game will be made in Unreal Engine 5. Following the Kingdom Come Deliverance games, which were made in heavily-modified versions of CryEngine, Warhorse is moving to Epic’s engine for its future releases.
Other than that, there’s is relatively nothing known about the RPG. It will be an open-world game, it will be a role-playing game, and it will be set in Middle-Earth. What era the game is set in, what the story will be, and even what systems the game will have are all a mystery… for now.
Warhorse’s Lord of the Rings game currently does not have a release date. With Kingdom Come Deliverance’s next game set to release in 2027, we may not see the RPG until sometime in the 2030s.
