Electronic Arts has announced that they have snooped the rights to the Lord of the Rings books too now. They already had the rights to make games based on the movie trilogy. Vivendi/Universal was the previous owner of the book rights but didn't exactly manage to create memorable titles with it since War of the Ring, Fellowship of the Ring and The Hobbit never really impressed us (although one can say the same for the EA LotR games).

What does this mean? Well, EA can now use all the material, storylines, characters from the books and at the same time everything of the movies. The first two games which will utilise these extra resources are The Lord of the Rings: Tactics (for PSP) and The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II (for PC). The official game descriptions for both games are as follows:



Worthplaying reports that the latter title, BfME II, is further revealed in a preview of the September issue of German magazine Gamestar. The German fansite HDR-Inside has put up an English summary of the preview right here (with screenshots). The most eyecatching stuff seems to be the customizable heroes, a campaign in the north of Middle-Earth, some sort of multiplayer dynamic campaign, sea battles, no more building limitations and a somewhat improved graphics engine. And oh yes, Battle for Middle-Earth II has an early 2006 release.

In other news: