The video game industry is a field in which Amazon, the giant, has not yet managed to establish itself with games created in-house. On May 15, 2023, the group announced that they are working on a game inspired by the universe of Lord of the Rings, a few months after the release of the first season of a TV series on the same theme. Here's what we know about this video game project that could change the game.
It is endowed with a pharaonic development budget.
On May 15, 2023, the video game platform Amazon Games announced that it had signed an agreement with Middle-earth Enterprise, which holds the rights to the derivative products of The Lord of the Rings saga, to develop a PC and console video game. The announcement is all the more enticing as the Amazon group has specified that it will be a triple A category game, meaning a high-end game with a development budget ranging from $50 million to several hundred million dollars. This project, which is still in its early stages of production, is announced as a massively multiplayer online adventure game (MMO) set in an open and persistent world located, of course, in Middle-earth! This video game, designed for fans of J.R.R Tolkien's imagined universe, will draw inspiration from the stories of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
He intervenes after several failures in this field.
This exciting announcement for video game enthusiasts and Lord of the Rings fans is also a big gamble for the Amazon group, whose own video game production has had its fair share of setbacks so far. In 2016, Amazon Games Studios announced that they were working on three titles called Breakaway, Crucible, and New World. Unfortunately, the first two projects fell through while the third, launched in late 2021, quickly lost steam. Amazon, which has also accelerated its activity as a publisher of unique video games in the West, is sparing no effort to acquire true legitimacy in the video game industry and among players. But it has not yet succeeded...
He will be competed against by other Lord of the Rings games.
For now, no release date has been specified by the Amazon group for this Lord of the Rings-inspired MMO game.
What is certain is that the American e-commerce giant will not be the only one to launch a video game inspired by this universe in the coming years.
In February 2023, the European leader in video games, Embracer, announced that no less than 5 games from the Lord of the Rings franchise would be released by the end of 2024.
As this franchise is highly appreciated worldwide, competition between different video games is expected to be tougher than ever. In a few days, on May 25, 2023, the French publisher Nacon will release the game The Lord of the Rings: Gollum on consoles and PC.
The incredibly rich universe of Middle-earth continues to provide fertile ground for creation, sometimes at the risk of not doing justice to J.R.R. Tolkien's work.
While the second season of the TV series is expected to arrive on the Prime Video streaming platform by 2024, it is not at all certain that the Amazon group's video game will be ready within the same timeframe. Players will have to wait for months to find out if the promise of an MMO that does justice to the world of Lord of the Rings has been fulfilled...