EA renews Lord of the Rings licence

EA has reached an agreement with New Line Cinema and Tolkien Enterprises to continue producing games based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novels, and the subsequent cinematic interpretations, until 2008.

After announcing a brand new title last year, Lord of the Rings: The White Council, EA has been very quiet about the project, leading to some speculation that it had been canned. However, the publisher confirms that a new Rings title is scheduled to arrive in 2008, though whether this will be the delayed White Council or a brand new outing remains to be seen.

“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.”

To date EA has produced two action games based on the movie trilogy – LOTR The Two Towers and LOTR The Return of the King, as well as its Battle for Middle Earth RTS series.

Codemasters is due to release the first ever Lord of the Rings MMO, The Shadow of Angmar, next month.