Shacknews brings uswordthat EA’s somewhat anticipated mega-RPGThe Lord of the Rings: The White Councilhas been cancelled. The game was set to combine the open-world, single-player-MMO dynamic ofOblivionwith Tolkien’s familiar and oft-copied climes, and as such, it was one of the biggest releases based on the property sinceBilbo’s Mule Adventure.
While (book-to-)movie-to-game translations rarely work, theLord of the Ringsseries had donesurprisingly wellfor itself. It didn’t hurt things that Tolkien’s ideas have been the blueprint for everything fromDungeons And DragonstoWarcraft,but it was also evident that EA was putting forth more than their usual effort when translating an existing IP to a game. Personally, I would have liked to have seenWhite Councilreleased simply so that consumers would have a chance to support that kind of effort, which we see all too rarely.
I guess this cancellation signals the end of the mediajuggernautthat was Peter Jackson’sLord of the Rings. When a company like EA (that hooks their employees up to catheters to save them from wasting their most productive moments with something as trivial as urination) feels it can no longer milk your franchise like the emaciated, dust-coughingcowit has become, it’s quite apparent that you won’t be seeing Gandalf doing lines withRobert Evansin the bathroom at Spago.
