Amazon Game Studios has announced it will be leading the development on a new The Lord of the Rings MMORPG.

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Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Amazon Show

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings MMORPG will be a free-to-play adventure set in Middle-earth as “portrayed in The Lord of the Rings literary trilogy.” Meaning the MMO will be based on author J.R.R. Tolkien’s original books, rather than Peter Jackson’s film trilogy Amazon Game Studios is developing The Lord of the Rings MMO with Leylou Technologies and Middle-earth Enterprises, and it will be released as a PC game and on consoles.Amazon’s upcoming MMORPG is the same Lord of the Rings project that was announced last year by Athlon Games, a Leylou subsidiary. Amazon Game Studios will now lead the project with a team comprised of veterans from popular MMOs like Everquest, Destiny, World of Warcraft, Planetside, and more. This is also the same development team behind Amazon’s upcoming original game, New World.“Tolkien’s Middle-earth is one of the richest fictional worlds in history, and it gives our team of experienced MMO developers — from the same studio developing New World — tremendous opportunity to play and create,” Amazon Game Studios VP Christoph Hartmann said in a statement.This is Amazon’s second high-profile Lord of the Rings project after the online retailer announced it was producing a new Lord of the Rings TV series for Amazon Prime . Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV series will be set during the Second Age , which takes place prior to the event of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.However, Amazon made it clear that the upcoming MMO and the TV show are unrelated, and are being developed separately.Amazon made no mention of The Lord of the Rings Online – an existing free-to-play MMORPG that released in 2007, based on The Lord of the Rings series and developed by Standing Stone Games. We reached out to Amazon to ask if there is any relationship between the two MMORPGs and will update this article with any information.Another upcoming game featured in Middle-earth, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, was announced for a 2021 release from developer Daedalic. It will be a narrative adventure game that will focus on the events of Gollum when he first found the ring to the beginning of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum will also be based off Tolkien's books and not Jackson's film interpretation.With both a Lord of the Rings MMO and television series in development at Amazon, the retailer seems to be betting big on J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary fantasy series as cornerstone of its original entertainment offerings.

Matt Kim is a reporter at IGN. You can reach him on Twitter