Warhorse Studios has officially confirmed that it is working on two major projects: a new Kingdom Come game and an open-world RPG set in The Lord of the Rings universe. The developers of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 have not revealed detailed information about either title yet, and neither game appears close to an official unveiling, but the confirmation alone is a major announcement for fans of both RPGs and Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
Fans have been waiting for years for a truly major, big-budget The Lord of the Rings project, and it now looks as if Middle-earth may finally be getting another serious chance in games. Several rumors in recent months had pointed to Warhorse Studios, the team behind Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, as one of the developers working on a new title based on Tolkien’s world. Now the Czech studio has confirmed its medium- and long-term plans itself: it is working on a new Kingdom Come game, and also on an open-world RPG set in The Lord of the Rings universe.
Previous reports had suggested that two AAA studios were developing parallel projects based on The Lord of the Rings. One of the names mentioned was Warhorse Studios, which appeared to be looking for new territory after its journey through realistic medieval Bohemia, while the other was reportedly Crystal Dynamics, the studio behind the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot and its sequels. For a while, Amazon Game Studios’ continued interest in the Tolkien license and its relationship with the Canadian studio made it seem possible that this would be the first project to surface. Instead, Warhorse Studios has stepped forward on its own X account, stating that “it was time to reveal what we’re working on.”
Warhorse Is Developing Two Major RPG Projects
The open-world The Lord of the Rings RPG is naturally the announcement attracting the most attention. Warhorse has not yet specified which era, storyline, or conflict the game will explore, so it would be premature to assume that it is directly tied to the War of the Ring or to any specific well-known narrative arc. It could theoretically draw from The Silmarillion, from the broader history of Arda, or from another age of Tolkien’s world, but for now there is not enough information to treat any of those possibilities as confirmed. What is clear is that the studio is not describing a simple linear adventure, but an open-world role-playing game, which is a particularly interesting fit given Warhorse’s previous work.
The second announcement is also significant: Warhorse is working on a new Kingdom Come game. In late 2025, the Czech studio had already said that its future would remain tied to RPGs while also exploring new ideas and new markets. Even so, the strength of the Kingdom Come brand makes it understandable that the team does not want to move too far away from the series that made it famous. Kingdom Come: Deliverance and its sequel represented a realistic, historical approach to role-playing with few direct competitors, so another installment or related project makes sense both creatively and commercially.
For now, Warhorse has only said that it will share more information “when the time is right.” That suggests both projects are still in the early stages of production, and neither appears close to a full public reveal. Even so, the mere idea of an open-world The Lord of the Rings RPG developed by the creators of Kingdom Come is enough to spark major excitement among genre fans. Middle-earth’s recent video game history has included unfinished ideas, smaller projects, and releases that divided the community because of how unevenly they handled the source material. A Tolkien RPG from Warhorse, potentially built around freedom, world simulation, and systemic role-playing, is therefore a particularly striking prospect.
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