Even though there’s a new MMO for Lord of the Rings on the horizon, Standing Stone Games says its own MMO, Lord of the Rings Online, is here to stay.
On the game’s forums, a community manager for Standing Stone assured players worried about who were worried about Lord of the Rings Online’s possible end that it would continue.
“It’s not going away!” reads the post. “[LOTRO] is beloved, it is sixteen, it is evergreen. […] Standing Stone has every intention of growing and supporting this community.”
Earlier in the week, Amazon Games and Embracer announced a joint partnership that’ll see the creation of a new online game for the fantasy franchise. This new, currently untitled MMO will be developed by Amazon’s Orange County team.
The studio, which also works on the colonial MMO New World, said it would build on the foundations of its first game to use for this new MMO. And unlike Lord of the Rings Online, it will be released on consoles in addition to PC.
Are the Lord of the Rings MMOs big enough for all of us?
Though having multiple games exist for the same series is fairly common, that isn’t always the case when it comes to MMOs.
For example, Star Wars Galaxies from Sony Online Entertainment was ended and effectively replaced with BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic. And to further drive that point, Galaxies shut down just days ahead of Old Republic’s launch in 2011.
And in general, online games in the same space often struggle to truly share it. Look at the boom of looter shooters and battle royales (well, the ones that haven’t shut down) as proof of that.
There’ve been multiple games for the franchise over the years, but Lord of the Rings Online is arguably one of its most enduring. It first launched in 2007 from the now-defunct Turbine Inc. Development later transferred to Standing Stone (which features some ex-Turbine staff) in 2016, which has been working on the title ever since.
Despite the high budget of its Rings of Power TV show and Embracer’s pricey acquisition of MIddle-earth Enterprises, Amazon appears to be committed to Lord of the Rings for the foreseeable future. But it may take the company some extra effort to make it stand out from a title that’s helped the brand persist in the games space for so long.