An Open World journey through Middle Earth
Amazon Games has announced a brand new open-world Lord of the Rings MMO set in the persistent world of Middle-earth. The game will finally move forward after an agreement between Amazon Games and Embracer Group(formerly THQ Nordic AB). It will be published globally by Amazon Games as well and will be available on both PC and consoles.
Late last year a previous Lord of the Rings MMO project at Amazon Games was canceled after a dispute with former development partner Tencent. Many assumed the project was no more, but it appears that is no longer the case.
Leading development will be Amazon Games Orange County, the makers of the existing open-world MMO New World. The game will also add to a growing arsenal of MMO titles that Amazon Games will publish. Earlier this year they signed publishing agreements with both NCSOFT and Bandai Namco to publish Throne and Liberty and Blue Protocol respectively. When you include Smilegate’s Lost Ark, that brings the total count of MMOs published by them to five which is quite impressive.
Potential for two active Lord of the Rings MMO’s at once
It’s not yet known what the fate of the existing MMORPG The Lord of the Rings Online will be. The game was released in 2007 by Turbine who later sold the game to Standing Stone Games. Despite its age, the game still receives updates and even had a brand new expansion release in November 2022. There is already a roadmap through the rest of 2023 for the game including a new expansion later this year. With each game having its own separate license, it’s possible we will have two active LOTR MMOs at once.
Amazon Games has already indicated that the upcoming MMO is unrelated to Amazon Studios’ The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power TV show on Prime Video.
