Middle-Earth Enterprises CEO teases the next generation of LoTR and Hobbit games

Here's how Middle-earth Enterprises plans to build an interconnected LoTR universe

One ring (and franchise) to rule them all. / The Tolkien Estate/Middle-earth Enterprises

The newly formed Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends is already working to bring a new generation of LoTR games to the market. The company, freshly spun off from Embracer Group, will work with internal and external teams to weave a cohesive web of interconnected games and media that feed off WB and Amazon's upcoming movies and TV shows.

In an interview with Venturebeat, Lee Guinchard, the CEO of Embracer Freemode which will become Middle-earth & Friends, talked extensively about the group's plans to produce new games based on J.R.R Tolkien's The Silmarillion.

The new games will come hot on the heels of the next LoTR movie, which veteran filmmaker Peter Jackson is producing. Of course, there’s also the second season of Amazon’s Rings of Power which debuts this summer, and the animated War of the Rohirrim movie. While a third Middle-Earth game from Monolith would make sense, that developer is currently busy working on a single-player Wonder Woman game. Middle-Earth Enterprise’s new games will aim to bridge the gap between the LoTR movies and shows in some sense, as Guinchard pointed out.

“Part of the due diligence was understanding what the map was,” he Guinchard. “Once you get under the hood, the actual rights are easy to understand. I started thinking. Oh God. This opportunity is way bigger than people realize. But it’s not an instant opportunity. You’ve got to look at this for a long time. Look at who the players are. And what can we do, as stewards of it? I had to get my head around what people are playing in and around our sphere.”

The first of these games is already close to being released. Tales of the Shire, a cozy hobbit life sim, will launch on PC and Switch later this year. The initiative doesn’t stop at just video games, as Guinchard recognized the immense success of Magic: The Gathering’s LoTR version, which brought in a sweet revenue of $200 million.

Middle-earth's initiative also includes planning crossover content with other live-service games, like Roblox, and maybe even making games that implement user-generated content.

“It’s a lot bigger than people might realize,” he said. “Embracing your communities and building with them. The world is naturally going there, building things with them.”

Of course, the history of the rights to Tolkien's works is complicated. Middle-earth Enterprises can access and tell stories from the Second Age of The Silmarillion. This includes major events such as the rise of Númenor and Sauron, and the creation of the rings of power.

Here’s every Lord of the Rings video game currently in development:

• Tales of the Shire
• Amazon’s LoTR MMO

“This is some of the brushstrokes of areas where we might want to explore gaming, which is in the First Age. The foundations for the whole world are set. The rights are locked up,” he added. “But when I’m looking at the future, it’s interesting. There are some great stories with Beren and Luthien. There are some really interesting things to go after with The Silmarillion. You have got to have a plan.”