It's an interesting time for gamer fans of Middle-earth, the fantasy setting created by J.R.R. Tolkien's fervid mind for his masterpieces The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

　　A week from now, Daedalic Entertainment is set to launch The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, an action/adventure game with strong stealth elements where players will, for the first time, be in the shoes of one of the most important characters in The Lord of the Rings, reliving his journey and affecting it to a degree by choosing to be more like the vindicative Gollum or the more innocuous Sméagol in various situations.

　　Later this year, the survival game The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria plans to bring Middle-earth aficionados back to the iconic dwarven underground. Set in the Fourth Age (after the events narrated by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings), it'll task players with reclaiming the ancient kingdom Khazad-dûm from the hordes of Orcs, though the environment itself will be a challenge as well.

　　Earlier this week, we also learned that Amazon Games is once again making a new The Lord of the Rings MMO, thanks to the partnership with Embracer Group's Middle-earth Enterprises. However, that game is still early in production and won't be in players' hands for years.

　　Another licensed Middle-earth game developed by Wētā Workshop, the interactive division of the renowned visual effects company that worked on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies, was supposed to be much closer, with an estimated launch by March 2024. Yesterday's Take-Two Q4 2023 earnings report quietly delayed it, though.

　　Take-Two President Karl Slatoff said the huge lineup for the fiscal years 2025 (likely to include GTA VI) and 2026 includes fourteen 'immersive core' games (six of which are sports simulations), two mid-core arcade-like games (one of which is sports oriented), four new iterations of previously released titles (likely to include new Civilization and BioShock installments), and four independent titles published by Private Division, two of which are coming from the partnerships with Game Freak and Wētā Workshop.

　　Given the previous fiscal year 2024 launch window, it's likely that the Middle-earth game has been delayed to fiscal year 2025 rather than 2026. As such, it could be released before the end of the next calendar year.

　　Wētā Workshop and Private Division haven't discussed the game's genre or any other details yet. However, a job opening for a Senior Game Programmer suggests the game could be developed using the Unity engine.