Deadelic Entertainment, the developer behind the recently-released and poorly-received The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, is reportedly working on another game set in Tolkien's universe.
Well, to say that it's been a rough launch for The Lord of the Rings: Gollum would be an understatement, as its litany of bugs, poor font choices, and other major issues have quickly made it the worst-reviewed game of 2023 so far, taking over a spot that was held by Rockay City and closely followed up by Redfall. It seems that even a launch this rough isn't stopping Daedelic Entertainment from doing more with the license, however.
As pointed out by Redditor Com_Raven on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit and initially discovered by German gaming outlet Gameswirtschaft.de, it appears that Daedelic Entertainment has at least one more Lord of the Rings game currently in the works. The unannounced game was discovered by Gameswirtschaft.de in the database of video game projects receiving a German government subsidy, which makes some sense considering Deadelic Entertainment is a German studio.
According to the patent, the game appears to be subtitled "It's magic", although the reasoning behind that currently isn't clear. The project was subsidised by the German government for around 2.03 million euros this time last year and appears to be targeting a release date in August 2024, at least according to the patent's end date.
The page also features a brief and fairly vague description of what the game is all about. According to the patent, The Lord of the Rings: It's Magic will be a new project that aims to "transport the player into a lush world full of mythical creatures and magic" from a character's perspective that has never been told before.
The patent continues, "The player discovers completely new regions and influences the events of the world within the scope of his role and his abilities. He tries in his own way to influence the course of things and to change the fate of the world. This project is aimed at avid fans of the fantasy story and 3D action-adventure genres around the world."
It's worth noting that the project hasn't been officially announced by Daedelic Entertainment yet, so its current development status isn't very clear. Although the messy launch of Gollum makes it easy to imagine that this second Lord of the Rings game might not see the light of day, it's worth noting that the German government has already paid a significant amount towards the game's development, which makes it likely that Deadelic will have to deliver, no matter if Gollum was poorly received.