Guardians of Middle-Earth, Lord of the Rings MOBA game announced

Warner Bros. has announced that it is currently developing a newMOBA titlebased on the Lord of the Rings series. Called "Guardians of Middle-Earth," the game is being prepped for a fall 2012 release to prime fantasy fans for the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

It's being planned as a dual-release on both the PlayStation Network as well as Xbox Live, and is being developed by the studs over at Monolith Productions who also created the F.E.A.R. series and Gotham City Imposters.

We're being told that the game will feature League of Legends-style 5v5 matches starring 20 different mega-heroes from the Lord of the Rings franchise like Gandalf, Sauron, and Gollum. Though the other heroes haven't yet been named, it's probably safe to assume your favorite characters are on the list. It's hard to imagine the likes of Thorin Oakenshield, Boromir, and Aragorn being overlooked.

Though at first blush the MOBA-genre might seem like an odd choice, we actually think it suits the LotR series quite well. The series' famous battle sequences have always been about epic (yet mortal) heroes charging into battle with a dozen nobodies. We're excited to see where this project leads, and with a developer like Monolith on-board, this game just hopped onto our nerdy most-wanted list.