Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developer Warhorse Studios confirmed all of the open-world Lord of the Rings RPG rumors just yesterday, and it's not just fans who are delighted.
Fellow developers, such as Palworld global community manager John 'Bucky' Buckley, are just as excited as we are, apparently. He shares his joy in a new online post, explaining that he's thrilled – although he wishes the big reveal's delivery was a bit better than, erm, a thread on X.
"A Lord of the Rings/Middle-earth game by the guys who made Kingdom Come is genuinely one of the most exciting things I've heard in a long time," he writes.
"Would have loved to have learned this from a reveal trailer, but I guess it's too easy to leak IP deals these days," concludes the Pocketpair dev. "Either way… HYPE!!" Hype indeed – many of us have been yearning for a good Lord of the Rings game for quite some time, and this might just be it.
Sadly, various projects – I'm looking at you, Amazon – have come up only to later face cancellation, leaving us Tolkien stans with nothing to play.
A Lord of the Rings/Middle-earth game by the guys who made Kingdom Come is genuinely one of the most exciting things I’ve heard in a long time.Would have loved to have learned this from a reveal trailer but I guess it’s too easy to leak IP deals these days.Either way…HYPE!! https://t.co/nEAmNhv7z7May 20, 2026
Then there are those that did release, but, uh, didn't exactly deliver on expectations… such as the mess that was The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, potentially one of the most infamous titles to come of the last decade or so.
The Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 devs do know how to make a great RPG, however, as it appears Bucky himself understands. Sadly, though, there's not much public information on their Tolkien-shaped project just yet.
Warhorse Studios previously said that it was making an "immersive RPG rich with details" that's "hopefully not so buggy" – which we now know is a Lord of the Rings game – but didn't explain more in its recent reveal than that it's "an open world Middle-earth RPG" of sorts… and, of course, that the team is working on another Kingdom Come entry as well.
It's a better time than ever to be a fan of the genre, I'd say.
Or, well, it is, as long as you don't consider The Elder Scrolls 6 and the billion-year wait that we've still got ahead of us. But anyway, The Lord of the Rings RPG – yay!
Searching for even more to look forward to? Browse through our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond to wishlist.
