UPDATE 4/1/19: It sounds like Lego Lord of the Rings and Lego The Hobbit's digital download versions have been removed from sale permanently.

Publisher Warner Bros. has not said why the games were delisted, but gave Eurogamer the following comment - confirming the games are no longer available to buy:

"Lego The Lord of the Rings and Lego The Hobbit will no longer be available for sale in digital stores," a WB spokesperson said. "The games will remain in players' libraries if they already own them."

ORIGINAL STORY 3/1/19: Lego Lord of the Rings and Lego The Hobbit have left the Grey Havens and are no longer available to buy from PC and console marketplaces.

The games disappeared from Steam, PlayStation and Xbox stores on or around 1st January - suggesting some kind of licensing restriction ran out at the ent of last year.

It's a shame, because Lego Lord of the Rings in particular is brilliant - a love letter to Middle-earth and Peter Jackson's original movie trilogy. It remains one of Lego's best open worlds.

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And Lego Hobbit was pretty great, too - it included mining and crafting gameplay I haven't seen in another Lego game since, and offered up yet more of Middle-earth to explore. But it was left incomplete - the final film in The Hobbit's trilogy planned as DLC that inexplicably never saw light of day. A bizarre and frustrating decision for fans left with only two thirds of the story.

Lego Lord of the Rings was the first Lego game to include voice lines taken from the movies themselves, alongside its score - which may be the cause of licensing issues.

We've asked publisher Warner Bros. what's up - and whether either will make it there and back again.