Amazon Takes Another Stab at Making a 'Lord of The Rings' MMO
Amazon is making another attempt to build a Lord of The Rings MMO game after calling it quits back in 2021.
This time, the company is tapping(Opens in a new window) its own internal studio rather than a Chinese developer. The team behind Amazon’s other massively multiplayer online game, New World, will build the upcoming LoTR title.
Amazon is also developing the game in partnership with Embracer Group, a publisher in Sweden that already owns several major gaming franchises, including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Borderlands. Last year, Embracer Group acquired(Opens in a new window) Middle-Earth Enterprises, which owns various intellectual property rights tied to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit books.
On Monday, Embracer Group said it had reached an agreement with Amazon Games to build an MMO game that’ll feature “beloved stories” from J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy novels.
“The game is in early stages of production, with Amazon Games Orange County—makers of the popular open-world MMO game New World—leading development. Amazon Games will publish the game globally for PC and consoles,” the companies said in their announcement.
That said, the company’s studio, Amazon Games Orange County, only has one title under its belt. Following several delays, the game New World launched in September 2021 and it initially attracted over 900,000 concurrent players, according(Opens in a new window) to Steamcharts.com. But the player count has since dropped off to around 20,000 users, amid mixed reviews.
Fans can expect the LoTR game to build on the “expertise and learnings” from New World, Amazon Games wrote in a blog post(Opens in a new window). This will include enabling large multiplayer battles and using an improved Azoth
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