Shacknews brings us word that EA’s somewhat anticipated mega-RPG The Lord of the Rings: The White Council has been cancelled. The game was set to combine the open-world, single-player-MMO dynamic of Oblivion with Tolkien’s familiar and oft-copied climes, and as such, it was one of the biggest releases based on the property since Bilbo’s Mule Adventure.
While (book-to-)movie-to-game translations rarely work, the Lord of the Rings series had done surprisingly well for itself. It didn’t hurt things that Tolkien’s ideas have been the blueprint for everything from Dungeons And Dragons to Warcraft, but it was also evident that EA was putting forth more than their usual effort when translating an existing IP to a game. Personally, I would have liked to have seen White Council released simply so that consumers would have a chance to support that kind of effort, which we see all too rarely.
I guess this cancellation signals the end of the media juggernaut that was Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. When a company like EA (that hooks their employees up to catheters to save them from wasting their most productive moments with something as trivial as urination) feels it can no longer milk your franchise like the emaciated, dust-coughing cow it has become, it’s quite apparent that you won’t be seeing Gandalf doing lines with Robert Evans in the bathroom at Spago.
