14 DAY TRIAL // Warner Bros. has just announced that it intends to publish a videogame based on the Lord of the Rings franchise, the first since the license was transferred from Electronic Arts.
The game will be called Aragorn's Quest and is set to be demoed at the E3 trade show, which is fast coming up. Warner Bros. is saying that it plans to make the videogame family and kid friendly in order to attract a wider demographic to the franchise. It's not clear on which platforms it will be released at the moment or whether we will get to see it launched in 2009.
Warner Bros. stated that “accessible gameplay set in a friendly, colorful rendition of Middle-Earth. Players assume the role of Strider and embark on his greatest quests from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The game offers authentic, action-oriented sword fighting, lancing and archery that all ages can play together.” Probably the gritty and dark rendition of the locales visited in the movie version of the Tolkien book will be significantly reworked for Aragorn's Quest in order to make it more accessible for young players.
It's not sure how much traction a Lord of the Rings videogame will gain at the moment, as Conquest, the latest effort published by Electronic Arts, has proved something of a flop. Fortunately, interest in the books is still strong, and New Line, which is a subsidiary of Warner Bros., is developing a film version of The Hobbit, which is set to be released in 2012. When that movie is out, gamers will no doubt be able to play a game, probably also published by Warner Bros., taking advantage of the free publicity.
Warner Bros. seems genuinely interested in entering the game business, now fully owning developers like Monolith Productions, Snowblind Studios and TT Games (also known as Traveller's Tales).