A Middle-earth RPG Is Coming — But Details Are Scarce

The dream of a truly great open-world Lord of the Rings game just got a lot more real. Warhorse Studios — the Prague-based team behind the critically acclaimed Kingdom Come: Deliverance series — has officially confirmed it is developing an open-world RPG set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth, ending months of swirling speculation about what the studio had planned next.

The announcement came through the studio’s social channels with characteristic understatement. “You might have heard the rumours, it’s time to reveal what we are working on,” Warhorse posted on X. “An open world Middle-earth RPG. A new Kingdom Come adventure. We’re excited to tell you more when the time is right.”

https://x.com/WarhorseStudios/status/2057008469920624696

That’s essentially all they’re saying for now — and the “when the time is right” caveat makes clear that a full reveal is still a ways off. No characters, no story details, no release window, no gameplay footage. Just the confirmation that it exists and that the studio is excited about it.

That’s enough, honestly. The reaction has been immediate.

Why Warhorse Makes a Lot of Sense for This

Warhorse isn’t a random pick for a project this significant. Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 launched earlier this year to strong reviews and won the BAFTA award for Narrative — a serious credential for a studio being handed one of the most beloved fictional universes ever created. The franchise has also sold over five million copies in its first year, according to Embracer’s own financial reporting. These are developers who know how to build dense, historically grounded worlds with real weight to them.

Warhorse communications director Tobias Stolz-Zwilling put it plainly on LinkedIn: “Just thinking about one of the biggest and most beloved IPs in the world being developed here in Prague is honestly mind-blowing.”

Embracer Group CEO Phil Rogers confirmed the project on a post-earnings call, and added that Warhorse is also working on another entry in the Kingdom Come franchise — meaning the studio is apparently juggling two major projects simultaneously. Rogers did not specify a development timeline for either game.

The Bigger Picture: Embracer’s Middle-earth Play

This announcement is also a piece of something larger happening inside Embracer Group. The company confirmed it is planning one more corporate spin-off, with the Lord of the Rings IP and Kingdom Come: Deliverance — alongside other major franchises — set to become part of a newly formed division called Fellowship Entertainment. That entity is slated to list on the Stockholm stock exchange in 2027. Embracer has also flagged plans to explore additional partnerships across its portfolio of properties, which includes Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Saints Row, Red Faction, Thief, and TimeSplitters.

In other words, the Lord of the Rings isn’t just a game project for Embracer — it’s a cornerstone of a whole new entertainment division.

When and Where Could This Game Be Set?

Here’s where things get genuinely interesting for fans, because Middle-earth’s timeline offers an almost overwhelming number of options — and none of them are obviously wrong.

The War of the Ring is the most familiar territory, but it comes loaded with problems. Frodo has to carry the Ring. Aragorn has to become king. Sauron has to fall in a very specific way. A player-driven story set during those events would constantly be bumping up against canonical outcomes, which limits creative freedom considerably.

The Second Age — the era that Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power has been exploring — is arguably the most epic option. Númenor, the forging of the Rings, Sauron’s rise as a political manipulator before he became a full dark lord. It’s enormous in scope. The risk is that Rings of Power has already put that world in front of a mass audience, and any game set there would immediately invite comparisons — and would have to navigate some of Tolkien’s most fixed historical events.

The Fourth Age, set after Sauron’s defeat, offers the cleanest creative freedom. The great war is over, the Ring is destroyed, and a new era is beginning. New characters, new conflicts, no Fellowship to work around. The downside is that it could feel untethered from the franchise’s most iconic beats.

The era that arguably makes the most sense for an original RPG, though, is the Angmar conflict — the fall of the northern kingdom of Arnor under the Witch-king’s assault. It has a villain players already understand as important, a sprawling geography of ruined kingdoms and fractured peoples, and just enough distance from the main story that a new protagonist could genuinely matter. Players could be a Ranger, a survivor from one of Arnor’s broken kingdoms, or simply someone caught in the slow collapse of the north. No Frodo to replace. No Aragorn to compete with. Just an original story set in a world fans already love.

Warhorse hasn’t hinted at any of this yet, of course. But given the studio’s track record of building richly detailed historical worlds with morally complex characters — and their clear comfort with settings that aren’t the most obvious choice — it’s hard not to speculate.

Middle-earth Is Having a Moment

The timing of this announcement isn’t incidental. This might genuinely be the best moment in years to be a Tolkien fan. Andy Serkis is returning to direct The Hunt for Gollum. A Stephen Colbert-penned film, Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of the Past, set in the Fourth Age with Sam’s daughter Elanor, is in development. Peter Jackson told Deadline at Cannes that the Tolkien Estate is warming to the idea of potentially opening up rights to previously restricted material like The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales — which would unlock the First Age of Middle-earth for adaptation for the first time. And The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 3 is set to premiere November 11, 2026 on Prime Video.

A major open-world RPG from the team that just won a BAFTA slots into that landscape like it was always supposed to be there.

Warhorse says they’ll share more “when the time is right.” Given everything else converging around Middle-earth right now, that wait might be shorter than it feels.