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EA Trails New Lord Of The Rings Games For 2004

Posted by simoniker on from the and-2005-and-2006-and-2007 dept.

Thanks to EGM for their article discussing the latest Electronic Arts games based on the Lord Of The Rings movie franchise. In talking to executive producer Neil Young, previously creator of unconventional online title Majestic, the existing, well-received Return Of The King game is dissected, but there's also information on further LOTR games due in 2004. Young discusses the already unveiled "[PC] RTS game we're developing called The Battles of Middle-Earth, which is being developed by our Los Angeles studio by the team that did Command & Conquer Generals", but also talks about "a new game - currently entitled The Lord of the Rings Trilogy... due out by the end of next year." According to Young, this multi-platform action title strives not to be a sequel too far: "The idea isn't to just take you back through the fiction again, but to give you some other characters who you might not expect to be able to play, and really extend the multiplayer features.. [and] develop the online feature."

1 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Can yo u say "too many games"? by WWWWolf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    EA is definitely a bunch of Evil Capitalist Pigs[tm], and have been so for a looong time. I have no love left for them after what they did to Bullfrog and Origin.

    And they have the game license to LotR movie, which naturally has one problem: EA is in position where it doesn't matter to them if the game is any good, they'll still make tons of money. Just a little twitch in the marketing muscle and they're set...

    The movie trilogy has been a success so far: The makers actually cared about the book, and it shows. Now, as for the game licenses, those things always end up being snatched by people who can only say "hey, this is a profitable license".

    Then again, if the license ever did happen to fall into the hands of a caring team of developers, it's always easy to ask if a "LotR game" even could be done. Book is a story in written form, movie is an interpretation of a story for another medium, but game is nonlinear and interactive. If they ever handed the license to me and gave me a bunch of artists and code slaves and plenty of budget, I'd definitely think of the thing for more than a while. How not to do a watered-down adventure game or a mediocre strategy game? How to be loyal to the original work without following right on the master's heels?

    Let's just ask, "What Would 'Betrayal at Krondor' Developers Do?"

    (End of a "want to be a NNirvi in place of the NNirvi" ramblerant. =)