New Lord of the Rings MMO is being developed by Amazon

Amazon Game Studios have officially announced that a new MMO title based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is now in active development. It's the same project that was announced last year by Athlon Games, a Leylou subsidiary.

A new massively multiplayer online game based on The Lord of the Rings has been announced and it will be developed by Amazon Game Studios. In the latest announcement, Amazon state that new Lord of the Rings MMORPG will be a free-to-play title, set in Middle-earth as "portrayed in The Lord of the Rings literary trilogy".

This means that the game is based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s original books rather than critically acclaimed film trilogy from Peter Jackson. Also, Amazon state that the MMO has no connection to the upcoming TV series based on The Lord of the Rings, that is being produced by the company.

It's basically the same project that was announced last year by Athlon Games and Leyou. Back then, there the info about the project was pretty scarce, but now, we at least know that the game is coming to PC and consoles.

Amazon Game Studios will helm the project with a team of industry veterans that previously worked on popular MMOs such as Destiny, World of Warcraft, Planetside, Everquest and more. The team that is developing The Lord of the Rings MMO is the same team that is working on Amazon's original IP - New World. 

Speaking about the new project, Amazon Game Studios Vice President Christoph Hartmann said that it's a tremendous opportunity to play and create with such a rich fictional world. "Tolkien's Middle-earth is one of the richest fictional worlds in history, and it gives our team of experienced MMO developers - from the same studio developing New World - tremendous opportunity to play and create,” Hartmann said.

EA Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Unfortunately, Amazon did not share more details about their new game. There is no target release window at the moment, which is expected since the developers are still busy with New World and will probably start working on The Lord of the Rings in full force once they wrap up the current project.