With rumors going around of Warhorse Studios—the development team behind the Kingdom Come: Deliverance games—working on a new project based on The Lord of the Rings, the studio has maintained its silence on the matter. In a series of Reddit posts, community manager Tom Grey addressed these rumors by noting Warhorse Studios can’t quite comment on its future projects yet.
“Obviously we can’t comment on future projects, at least not until we’re in the future (but if you have a time machine, please show us!),” they wrote. Another post by content director Ondrej Bittner has confirmed that the studio is working on a “huge, immersive RPG.”
“We are hard at work on … something,” wrote Bittner. “I cannot disclose details, but I can tell it is a huge, immersive RPG.”
Reports about a The Lord of the Rings game being developed at Warhorse Studios started just a couple of months ago, with Polish gaming industry veteran Ryszard Chojnowski mentioning having heard about the project from “credible sources”. The report also noted that Embracer Group—the company that currently owns the rights to develop games based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy epic—and Revenge were also said to be involved. With Warhorse Studios being a subsidiary of PLAION, which in turn falls under the Embracer Group umbrella, such a partnership wouldn’t be too surprising.
However, reports have also indicated that an RPG based on The Lord of the Rings isn’t being made by Warhorse Studios. Rather, Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics is believed to be heading up development. While the report indicated that these could be two separate projects based on the same IP, “those close to the game’s development” have said that Crystal Dynamics is making the game, according to Insider Gaming’s Mike Straw.
A game based on The Lord of the Rings was said to be in development after being funded by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office for $100 million. While Embracer hasn’t yet confirmed any details about the project because “[as] a general rule, we do not comment on rumors or speculation,” reports at the time indicated that this project would “compete with Hogwarts Legacy” by giving fans of a classic piece of fantasy literature an open-world game to roam around in.
Warhorse Studios seems to be uniquely well-suited to develop a game based on The Lord of the Rings, since the studio has made a name for itself thanks to its simulationist approach to medieval storytelling with the Kingdom Come: Deliverance games. The scope of their open worlds also tends to fit traditional video game pacing quite well, which could also indicate that this project, based on The Lord of the Rings will offer a small part of Middle-earth rather than the entire continent.
In the meantime, an MMORPG based on The Lord of the Rings being developed by Amazon Games got cancelled in October 2025 after the company started cutting back on its video game aspirations. As a result, many members of the development team have been laid off, including former senior gameplay engineer Ashleigh Amrine.
