An Open-World Middle-Earth RPG From Kingdom Come Studio Is Officially Happening

Warhorse Studios has officially confirmed that it’s working on a Lord of the Rings game, as well as a new entry in its Kingdom Come series. While its social media post kept details to a minimum, the developer did confirm that it’s developing an “open-world” Middle-earth RPG, with more details to come at a later date.

The announcement of a new Middle-earth game comes at a time when the developer’s parent company, Embracer, is busy with a few changes of its own. The company owns the rights to create new games, movies, and much more based on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, after it acquired Middle-earth Enterprises from The Saul Zaentz Company in 2022. Embracer recently announced the formation of Fellowship Entertainment, a new unit dedicated to “exploring” external partnerships for its biggest IP, like LOTR, Tomb Raider, Legacy of Kain, and Deus Ex.

On the surface, Warhorse Studios looks like a good fit for Middle-earth. Recent video games based on the IP have been less than stellar–we’re still trying to forget the Gollum game–and Warhorse earned critical acclaim for last year’s smash-hit medieval open-world adventure, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. At the same time, the studio has been criticized for reportedly firing a developer so that it could save money with AI–a topic the studio has declined to comment on.

The project won’t see Kingdom Come: Deliverance game director Daniel Vávra involved with it, as he stepped away from the position so that he could work on bringing the franchise to the big screen.

Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics is also rumored to be making a new The Lord of the Rings game, and back in 2024, Embracer said that it was prototyping multiple new ideas for more games in the franchise as part of a drive to create a Lord of the Rings Renaissance.