In the wake of Marvel’s MMO cancellation, the MMO classic The Lord of the Rings Online, of all things, becomes the big beneficiary.
The Lord of the Rings Online is currently floating on a small wave of success. Last year, the MMO veteran released its eighth expansion, Gundabad, which revolved around the eponymous ancient dwarven homeland and concluded the plot thread that had been spun for around two years.
On top of that, the 15th anniversary was proudly celebrated this year. In addition to all kinds of gifts for the players, they looked back on past adventures that they have experienced together in the context of many quests and an emotional trailer.
But no reason to sail straight west: There is still a lot to do. At least that’s what developer Standing Stone Games promises us, and publisher EG7 apparently sees it that way too. Because the virtual Middle Earth has now even beaten out an ambitious Marvel MMO project internally.
Bye, bye Spider-Man, hello Gandalf!
What happened? On 25 May 2022, EG7 announced in a press release that it had shelved a Marvel online role-playing game commissioned from developer Daybreak Games. The company has re-evaluated the development risks, the required financial investment and the long-term strategy and decided to take this step.
There hasn’t been much information about the game so far anyway, but this is bad news for comic book fans who have always wanted to fight together against evil villains. In the meantime, the first alleged screenshots have also surfaced. Assumed
because the artist Ramiro Galan on his ArtStation profile only states to have worked on an “aborted Marvel MMO project” without confirming the definite connection to the EG7 title.
What does this have to do with HdRO? So superheroes will have to hang their costume back in the wardrobe. Elf ears, on the other hand, rejoice, dwarves raise their tankards in joy and hobbits treat themselves to a third breakfast: because of all things, The Lord of the Rings Online, or HdRO for short, which had disappeared into a niche, is now benefiting from the Marvel exit.
Financial injection for upgrades and new content
The reason is obvious and simple: HdRO is currently experiencing a second spring Unofficial figures attest to the game’s highest player numbers in over 5 years, if you exclude a brief peak during the Corona Pandemic. At that time, all content was made free for a few months to provide a distraction for people sitting at home all over the world.
According to the statistics linked above, around 72,000 players are currently said to be roaming the Breeland, Rohan and Mordor. This is probably due not only to the loyal flock of veterans that has grown over the course of 15 years, but above all to the large number of heroes and heroines who are now coming to Middle-earth for the first time or once again. For large parts of the game have recently become completely free to play:
The publisher and developer naturally want to keep these new players permanently. Therefore, the 500 million Swedish kronor (equivalent to around 47 million euros) budgeted for the Marvel MMO will be distributed among several, smaller projects within the group. Specifically mentioned: A major upgrade for The Lord of the Rings Online.
The extent of this ominous upgrade remains to be seen. But you shouldn’t expect the entire technical framework, which is more than twenty years old, to be completely overhauled. That would probably break the cost-benefit ratio. However, major graphical improvements, revised animations, a reduction of the annoying lags and a new interface that looks more contemporary and also supports high resolutions without any problems are conceivable.
Finally, we have a treasure for you. No, not a sparkly ring, because it’s ours. Ours! To us alone! But we’ll give you a reading tip: because Fabiano not only never spurns breakfast, he also likes to think about all kinds of things. In the following article, for example, he talks about what The Lord of the Rings should learn from Star Wars.
