Today, as part of its Q3 2022 financial report, the Embracer Group announced that there are five new games based on The Lord of the Rings IP in production by external game studios. They are currently expected to be released by the end of March 2024.
In the quarter, Freemode closed the previously announced acquisition of Middle-earth Enterprises. For Freemode, this acquisition has generated a lot of interest among both internal and external partners for The Lord of the Rings IP across different media formats. There are currently five games in production by external partners to be released in financial year 2023/24.
There is also one film in production by an external partner. Freemode continues to make selective key recruitments in various parts of its business to strengthen the organization.
So far, we know about four upcoming games based on The Lord of the Rings. The first is the long-delayed story-driven action/adventure game Gollum by Daedalic Entertainment, featuring the iconic character's journey through Middle-earth. Originally announced in March 2019, it was supposed to be released in 2021. Daedalic later delayed it to 2022, which became September 2022 before a quiet slip into 2023. The latest news suggests a Spring/Summer launch window, with the developers expected to share more information at the upcoming Nacon Connect (scheduled for March 9th).
The second game is the survival title The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, where players will embark on an all-dwarf adventure (set in the Fourth Era of Middle-earth) to explore and survive the iconic underground region with coop support for up to eight dwarves. Developed by Californian studio Free Range Games, Return to Moria will be released sometime this year on PC via the Epic Games Store.
Then there's the Middle-earth game announced last year to be in development at Wētā Workshop and the turn-based free-to-play collectible RPG Heroes of Middle-earth for mobile devices.
That leaves one unannounced The Lord of the Rings game.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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