Embracer Group has announced that there are currently five Lord of the Rings games in development that are expected to launch within the next couple of years. Last year, Embracer bought the IP rights to Lord of the Rings after the group's subsidiary Freemode acquired Middle-Earth Enterprises. The recent announcement of its five gaming projects suggests that the company may have big plans around the franchise, particularly in the video game space.
Of course, games based on Lord of the Rings are nothing new with titles varying from War in Middle Earth to LEGO Lord of the Rings. Among those numerous offerings, 2014's Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Shadow of War are widely considered to be one of the best from the IP with the former even introducing its novel Nemesis System. Now, with Lord of the Rings under the helm of Embracer, the group appears to be keen on capitalizing on the franchise's massive popularity.
In its latest earnings report for the third quarter of 2022, Embracer Group stated that there are currently five Lord of the Rings games in the works through external partners. The group also mentioned that all of these titles will release by the end of the 2023/24 financial year, which means fans will get to experience all five games within the next 24 months. While Embracer hasn't listed the titles specifically, four of the Lord of the Rings titles have already been announced, most notably Daedalic Entertainment's Lord of the Rings: Gollum that's scheduled to release in 2023. Alongside Daedalic, other upcoming projects include The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria from Free Range Games, a mobile game from EA, as well as a title from Weta Workshop. This essentially means another Lord of the Rings is in development that's yet to be announced.
While it remains to be seen what form the unannounced Lord of the Rings will take, many fans may be paying close attention to Daedalic's Gollum. Dubbed a third-person action-adventure RPG, the Gollum-centric game is slated for a 2023 launch. However, it has already been delayed several times since the announcement in 2019 and now fans wonder if Lord of the Rings: Gollum will suffer the same fate as Skull and Bones. Even so, the fact that there are five game projects already underway is a promising sign for many who craved another entry after 2017's Shadow of War.
But games aren't the only Lord of the Rings property that's on the way. There's also a new anime movie, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which will feature Miranda Otto reprising her Eowyn character along with the second season of Amazon's Rings of Power series. All in all, it appears fans will be no short of Lord of the Rings content for the next couple of years.
Source: Embracer Group