Amazon Plans 'The Lord of the Rings' Multiplayer Game for PCs

As Amazon adapts The Lord of the Rings into a TV series, the company also wants to create a multiplayer game around the beloved fantasy trilogy.

On Wednesday, the company announced it will develop the upcoming title with Chinese company Leyou Technologies. The product will be free to play, and operate as a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, the same genre as World of Warcraft and The Elder Scrolls Online.

The game will be set in "Middle-earth" as depicted in The Lord of the Rings novels, and arrive on PC and consoles. Although Amazon announced the project today, the game has actually been in development since last year. In September, Leyou subsidiary Athlon Games said it was creating an MMO based on the fantasy series with a then-unnamed partner.

So far, Amazon hasn't had strong record in game development. In 2012, the company unveiled its own game studio to build casual, app-based games that competed with Zynga. Since then, the Amazon division has focused on creating PC- and console-based titles, one of which includes an upcoming MMO called New World. It tasks the player with colonizing new territories in an alternative 17th century world. But for now, the game remains in a closed testing mode.

The Amazon team behind New World will also lead development of The Lord of the Rings game. The staffers include industry veterans who worked on Everquest, Destiny, Planetside, World of Warcraft, Defiance, Rift, and other popular MMOs, Athlon said in a statement.

No release date was announced, and there will be no direct ties to the TV series the company has been adapting for Amazon Prime Video.

However, the project won't be the first Middle-earth-themed MMO. The Lords of the Rings Online dates back to 2007 and remains playable today as a free game.

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Michael Kan

Principal Reporter

My Experience

I've been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I'm currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country's technology sector.

Since 2020, I've covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I've combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink's cellular service.

I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.

I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I'm now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I'm always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.

The Best Tech I've Had:

My first video game console: a Nintendo Famicom
I loved my Sega Saturn despite PlayStation's popularity.
The iPod Video I received as a gift in college
Xbox 360 FTW
The Galaxy Nexus was the first smartphone I was proud to own.
The PC desktop I built in 2013, which still works to this day.

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