EA extends Lord of the Rings license @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on March 28, 2007

News: A new LOTR game is coming in 2008 and I don't think it's The White Council.

EA has announced they will continue making Lord of the Rings game after they reached an agreement with New Line Cinema and Tolkien Enterprises today. The deal, which is good through 2008, allows EA to create games based on Tolkien's original novels and the movie trilogy.

EA also went ahead and announced that the next Lord of the Rings game will be released in 2008. It's likely this is the final nail in the coffin for The White Council, an RPG EA was creating for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. EA put The White Council on "indefinite hold" a few months back and no one was quite sure what the future held for the title.

Discussion of the next LOTR game was limited to phrases like "an all-new project" and that "details would be forthcoming." If The White Council was still in production, EA would have no reason to hide the title nor the details of their next LOTR game.

"The Lord of the Rings is an incredible canvas to create epic games," said Frank Gibeau, EA's executive vice president and general manager of North American publishing. "We look forward to our next project with New Line Cinema and Tolkien Enterprises scheduled to ship in 2008."

"We have a long history of making great games with EA and are thrilled to extend our longstanding relationship," said David Imhoff, New Line's senior executive vice president of worldwide licensing and merchandising. "We look forward to working closely with EA to create even more compelling Lord of the Rings adventures in the future."

We'll have more details on this deal soon.