New Lord of the Rings game from EA in 2008

Stephen Withers
Friday, 30 March 2007 05:28

Your IT - Entertainment

Electronic Arts is staying with The Lord of the Rings franchise and will develop "an all-new title scheduled for release in 2008".

The nature of the new game has yet to be revealed.  All we know is that it is not The Lord of the Rings: The White Council, development of which remains on hold.

The usual executive backslapping accompanied the announcement.

"The Lord of the Rings is an incredible canvas to create epic games," said Frank Gibeau, EA's executive vice president and general manager of North American publishing. "We look forward to our next project with New Line Cinema and Tolkien Enterprises scheduled to ship in 2008."

"We have a long history of making great games with EA and are thrilled to extend our longstanding relationship," said David Imhoff, New Line's senior executive vice president of worldwide licensing and merchandising. "We look forward to working closely with EA to create even more compelling Lord of the Rings adventures in the future."

Existing EA LOTR games are available for PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Xbox, Xbox 360, and Game Boy Advance.

EA has two separate licences for The Lord of the Rings. The one granted by Tolkien Enterprises allows EA to make games based on the three books, the other covers derivatives of New Line Cinema's movies.