Video Game Super-Publisher Buys Rights To The Lord Of The Rings And The Hobbit

The Embracer Group, the enormous media holding company that owns the developers behind Borderlands, World War Z, and Goat Simulator, has snapped up the rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by buying Middle-earth Enterprises. Mega.

At the moment, there are four upcoming The Lord of the Rings games to look forward to as well as the new The Rings of Power show that's coming to Amazon Prime. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum follows the titular creature before he meets Frodo in Moria and will use determinant decision making which prioritises either the Gollum side or the Smeagol side of his personality to change how the story plays out. Speaking of, there's The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria which is a procedurally generated survival and crafting game that sees a party of dwarves reclaim their realm on Gimli's orders.

Check out the latest trailer for The Rings of Power here:

And, there is The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth for mobile platforms from Electronic Arts and the recently revealed game from Private Division and Weta Workshop. Obviously, none of these are jeopardised through the acquisition, but it is a historic exchange. Embracer Group spent $770 million on all of its acquisitions that were announced yesterday, and seeing that previous owner The Saul Zaentz Company wanted $2 billion for the rights to the Tolkien's universe, it walked away with a bargain.

“I am truly excited to have The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, one of the world’s most epic fantasy franchises join the Embracer family, opening up more transmedia opportunities including synergies across our global group," said Lars Wingefors, Founder and CEO of Embracer Group. Embracer Group has already set its sights on what it wants from this acquisition, including "additional movies based on iconic characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn, Gollum, Galadriel, Eowyn and other characters from the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien."