Pandemic Announces The Lord of the Rings: Conquest News

Although it was as good as confirmed in February that Pandemic is working on a Lord of the Rings game (thanks to an EA analysts report), the studio has now officially announced The Lord of the Rings: Conquest for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, which will be released this coming autumn.

According to IGN, the game will take a similar form to the studio's previous Star Wars: Battlefront games, which boasted base capturing gameplay in DICE's Battlefield style (i.e. huge multiplayer battles on vast maps).

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest will allow players to take part in battles from the films (as well as a few others), and play as everything from Sauron to the Balrog, and Cave-trolls to Oliphaunts. Up to 8 players will be able to take part in online battles, although up to 150 characters will be present in the battles at a time.

This does suggest a slight departure from the SW: Battlefront format, where the online battles could support up to 64 players on the superior PC version. However, with a 4 player co-op option (either online or via split-screen) through two separate campaigns (one of which provides a 'what if' scenario where Sauron controls the One Ring), you can expect a large number of AI bots to fill these 150 character slots.

One of the major criticisms of the Battlefront games was their lack of a substantial single-player offering. Perhaps, in order to combat this, the studio has put a greater emphasis on the campaigns and story behind The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, thereby sacrificing large player numbers for each battle as a result.

"Our Pandemic Studios creative teams have years of expertise bringing giant battlefields to life," says Andrew Goldman, Pandemic Studios Co-founder and General Manager. "We've always wanted to harness our experience in a fantasy universe with warriors, archers, mages and castle sieges. Of course, there is truly no better fantasy world to recreate than the enormity of 'The Lord of the Rings' realm."

This puts the final nail in the coffin of any hopes that Pandemic are working on SW: Battlefront 3, which rumours suggest is in development at Free Radical Design. Following EA's acquisition of Pandemic, a LucasArts project with the studio seemed unlikely even though fellow EA studio, BioWare, currently has an unannounced LucasArts project under its awnings.

Either way, The Lord of the Rings universe is a logical step forward licensing wise for EA and Pandemic. EA recently renewed its license for 2008 to produce games based on the literary world of The Lord of the Rings.

"We'll freely admit that we're rabid fans of The Lord of the Rings fantasy," says Josh Resnick, Co-founder and General Manager at Pandemic Studios. "Our experience creating massive, rich, action-packed games means that The Lord of the Rings: Conquest will give fans exactly what they want: full control of the blade, bow and magic to fight its epic battles any way they want - even if they choose to play from the evil side."