Lord of the Rings: White Council
The fourth of our 'games that never made it'
Thinking of a single reason why they didn’t make this game is really hard. If they were worried that it wasn’t going to sell enough copies to make it viable I really hope they’re reading this because I will commit right here to buying enough copies to make it worth it.
In fact it’s hard to find out why they didn’t make it – EA just sort of put it on hiatus and never bothered to pick it up again. They said this was due to a "management issue" and instead released Lord of the Rings: Conquest, something almost as disappointing as the fact there won’t be a White Council.
Essentially the game promised to deliver not just what The Third Age failed to deliver, but what a lot of RPG’s across the field have all failed to do. The idea was simple, a set of story line quests set in an expansive, explorable world with more side quests than a Fallout: New Vegas and Red Dead Redemption’s illegitimate (but presumably glorious) love child.
Why would it have worked? IT’S LORD OF THE RINGS! The fact that you have even stopped to read this article informs me quite quickly that you probably like video games, which in turn tells me you love Lord of the Rings. In fact, you love it so much that when you watch it you’re kind of upset you’re not there. And then suddenly, you could be. You know those really cool named places on the map of Lord of The Rings you at some point studied/had on your bedroom wall/is tattooed across your chest? You could totally go there too. Dragon Age and so many others have always fell short of what I imagine this to have so nearly been.
Though we still will most likely never see this game, I’m accepting lottery ticket donations if anyone else out there wants to help make it so.
