Traveller's Tales, the game studio behind numerous LEGO titles, spent $1 million on a Lord of the Rings game pitch that never released, according to the studio's founder, Jon Burton. Burton revealed new details and gameplay for the Lord of the Rings game over on his YouTube channel, GameHut, and even for a title on the Xbox 360 and PS3, it looks incredibly impressive.
Burton showed off a few different aspects of what the game could have been, from Frodo sneaking around attacking Uruk, to Gandalf's battle with Saruman. All said and done, the demo consisted of four polished levels: Isengard, Crossing the Hoarwell, Khazad Dum (the Balrog fight), and Deephallow Woods. Additionally, there were multiple tech demos created for the game, including the actor-filled opening scene of the films, and one showing Aragorn's combat mechanics.
Each level is shockingly impressive for a game demo. Combat looks interesting with varied mechanics between each of the characters, and some of the environments, specifically those in the Shire, are gorgeous. "We basically went way too far and spent way too much money making this demo," Bolton says in the video, "but I really wanted to show what we could do beyond just the LEGO games."
Even with such a polished demo, The Lord of the Rings was only meant to be used as a template. The demo was created around the same time that The Hobbit movies were in development, with the finished product intended to be a tie-in with those films, though Bolton couldn't recall if he intended to make a separate Lord of the Rings title too.
Bolton went so far as to pitch the game to Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro in February 2009, with Del Toro still attached to The Hobbit films at the time. Del Toro was especially excited about the title, and Bolton claims that they received positive feedback for the pitch. Unfortunately, Warner Bros. wanted a game set in the same world at the same time, but not a direct movie tie-in, an approach Bolton didn't agree with. "In the end, the game was never greenlit," Bolton says.
Bolton went on to say that he was ultimately glad the game was never released, citing Del Toro's exit from The Hobbit franchise and the ultimately lackluster quality of the films as the primary reason. The studio did, however, go on to create the LEGO Lord of the Ring games instead, including The Hobbit, which was enough for Bolton.
A Lord of the Rings game was pitched, but never released.