The Lord of the Rings: all the games coming out in the coming months

The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings is a ... brand ... No, forgive us. It would tend to be true, but such a commercial word as a brand does not do justice to the literary work of J.R.R. Tolkien who has influenced our imagery for decades and continues to enchant generations after generations of readers, and viewers, now that, twenty years after the first Peter Jackson trilogy, we are back in a cinematic version of Middle-earth with The Rings of Power. The series on Amazon Prime Video - of which you can read our review of the first two episodes - broke the records of views on the Jeff Bezos platform and, with its multimillion budget, enchanted millions of viewers, but also raised enormous controversy. as often happens in these troubled and divisive years.

In our sector The Lord of the Rings is an evergreen. Video games inspired by Tolkien's imagery come out on a more or less regular basis, and sometimes they hit the mark, sometimes they don't. The arrival on TV of The Rings of Power, however, has aroused the interest of most in the videogame adaptations, so we have taken stock of all the games of The Lord of the Rings that will arrive in the coming months on our real shelves and virtual. There aren't many, but they guarantee at least a certain variety.

We obviously start with ...

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum

The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, a scene from the game Announced in 2019 to release in 2021, then postponed to 2022, then set for a September launch window, the title developed by Daedalic Entertainment (those of Deponia) has been postponed to a later date in all its versions: being a multi-platform production, in fact, it should also have been released for Nintendo Switch in November, but now the new date is absolutely vague.

In the press release released via social media on July 25th, we read the usual thanks to the fans but no explanation regarding the reasons for the postponement: only the commitment, by the development team, to return the " best possible experience ".

The fact is that the trailer for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum shown at the beginning of July did not meet the consensus they hoped for in Daedalic and, indeed, raised a lot of criticism and perplexity towards an antiquated graphics engine - given that the game will also be released on the last generation consoles - and of a gameplay apparently obsolete, mainly focused on stealth and exploration. In one word, Gollum sounds like a title ... boring. Now we need to understand how Daedalic will retouch the game, which should tell the misadventures of Sméagol before, during and after his fateful encounter with the One Ring.

In the trailer you certainly don't see Gollum fighting, nor is it possible to understand how the German developer has implemented the dynamic promise of personality splitting which, he says, would allow us to face certain circumstances in a different way, choosing to communicate like Gollum or Sméagol. The potential is there, but will Daedalic rise to the challenge?

The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-Earth

The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-Earth , a scene from the trailer It goes without saying that the company could not miss the company with its eyes turned to the increasingly flourishing mobile market, in this case Electronic Arts, which last May announced a collaboration with Middle-Earth Enterprises, the company that owns the rights on much of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Available in select countries and soon around the world, The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-Earth is a collectible character RPG from free-to-play type that allows us to face some of the most iconic battles of Tolkenian mythology, but not only, forming a personalized band with the heroes we have unlocked, a bit like it happens in many other mobile titles that fish with both hands from anime and comics, and that we can enhance with and accumulated currencies. If you are hungry for Tolkenian fanservice and can come to terms with the edgy cartoonish style, this app could be a nice harp, but predatory dynamics are always around the corner ...

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria

The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria, a scene from the trailer Announced during the Epic Games Summer Showcase, the new title from the independent company Free Range Games, will be a procedural multiplayer survival adventure : each game will be different from the others, and it will be possible to form teams of up to eight Dwarves, summoned in the presence of Gimli himself in an era more or less after the destruction of the One Ring.

Our aim will be to explore the mines of Moria deeper and deeper, looking for precious materials and resources with which to craft new weapons, armor and accessories. A cross between Spelunky, Minecraft and Don't Starve, the game offers multiple interlocking dynamics: not only will you need to procure the raw material to survive, but also micromanage it while trying to avoid Orcs and Goblins as much as possible, until it is inevitable go to hard ways to get rid of it.

Return to Moria should arrive on PC around spring 2023. Free Range Games is not a well-known or important developer, but it seems to have studied a marriage of genres that is anything but trivial that could intelligently exploit one of the most iconic, mysterious and fascinating settings of the Tolkenian imaginary.

The game of Wētā Workshop

The announcement of the collaboration between Wētā Workshop and Private Division Se you have a smattering of The Lord of the Rings cinematic, then you will remember that Wētā Workshop is the studio that worked on the special visual effects of the Peter Jackson trilogy, of the prequel The Hobbit released a few years later and the recent series The Rings of Power. Well Wētā Workshop in 2014 founded a department that deals with video games. Now, thanks to their familiarity with the Tolkenian imaginary, those of Wētā Workshop would be working on behalf of the publisher Private Division, the independent label of Take-Two.

In reality we know absolutely nothing about this new title and we can only refer to the words of Amie Wolken who, at the head of the project, said: "It is a huge privilege to work on a new game set in the Land of Mezzo, especially because it is very different from any other fans have played before ".

Wētā Workshop has also created the special effects of The Rings of Power A sobering statement, since between role-playing games, strategy, MMOs, third-person adventures, action titles and more, we've seen a little bit of everything over the years. Looks like Take-Two is aiming for 2024 as its release year, so we may begin to see something more concrete as early as the next few months.

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