Amazon Games partners with Embracer Group to produce The Lord of the Rings MMO

Amazon Games announced a new partnership today with Swedish conglomerate Embracer Group and their subsidiary Middle-earth Enterprises to develop and publish a MMORPG game based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings intellectual property.

Development is being led by Amazon Games’ Orange County studio – the first time one of their internal teams have led development on an external IP. It’s the same team behind New World, one of Amazon’s other MMOs. If you’re a fan of The Lord of the Rings, you might have concerns, but AG Orange County says to fear not – they’re fans too:

“The number-one thing about a property like this is that you have to be respectful and authentic. When somebody is a fan of The Lord of the Rings and sits down and plays this game for the first time, they have to say, ‘This was crafted by a bunch of people who lived in this world just like I do in my head. They get it. We understand this world. The people working on this team love these works. We’re right there with you; we’re fans, and we want to make a game that we, as fans, will enjoy.”

AG Orange County plans to continue support for New World while developing this new project and adapting what they have learned to do right by The Lord of the Rings. This is not the first time that Amazon Games has tried to make a MMO in the Tolkien-verse, as they announced a similar project in 2019 and later cancelled it in 2021 due to contractual disputes with Tencent, which, at the time, purchased Amazon’s partner on the project – Leyou Technologies – after which the original deal fell apart.