Amazon's LotR MMO Isn't Going To Replace LotRO - And It Shouldn't Try To

mmorpg.com:

I think it's no secret if you've been following me for a while that The Lord of the Rings Online is, and likely always will be, my favorite MMORPG on the market. New games come and take its place in my gaming rotation every once in a while, but Standing Stone Games' vision for Middle-earth will always be my gaming home.

Yet I can't help but be excited for what is to come with Amazon's next crack at an MMORPG set in Tolkien's world. When we got word that Amazon was building a new LotR MMO last week, I had a ton of questions. Where in Middle-earth's history would this take place? Would we see familiar characters? How open will the world be? With the New World studio building the MMO, are we going to see a game similar to New World itself?

Yet one of the questions that never came to my mind during all of this was what this meant for the continued existence of The Lord of the Rings Online.

Part of that comes down to a quote given to us by Executive Producer Rob Ciccolini the last time Amazon attempted a Lord of the Rings MMO, that he doesn't see this as the end of LotRO, rather it's just another game. 

Rob told us back in 2020:

«So every new game that comes out basically has a chance to compete and offer new ways of looking at this type of content. So we encounter this many times a year.»

And that's pretty much how I see this as well. Amazon's MMO is certainly going to turn heads, especially since it'll be newer and probably flashier. But will it provide the experience that current LotRO players are looking for? It's hard to tell without any real information about the upcoming game.

In an interview last week, Amazon's CEO Christoph Hartmann threw a little shade at The Lord of the Rings Online, stating that the two games will be