Warhorse Studios Clarifies Stance on Lord of the Rings Video Game Rumours
Warhorse Studios, the Czech developer behind the critically acclaimed medieval RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance, has for the first time addressed ongoing industry speculation about whether it is working on a Lord of the Rings video game. Content director Ondřej Bittner spoke on the subject, in what represents the studio's most direct public response to months of rumour and conjecture.
The statement, however, did not confirm active development. Bittner acknowledged the speculation without providing specifics about whether the studio has entered negotiations with Tolkien Enterprises or any other rights holder, or whether any prototype work has commenced. The carefully worded response reflects standard industry practice: companies rarely confirm or deny projects in early development, particularly when licensing negotiations with major IP holders are involved.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance, first released in 2018, established Warhorse as a studio capable of delivering historically grounded open-world RPGs with an emphasis on melee combat, detailed period environments, and player agency over fantasy mechanics. Its sequel, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, launched in early 2025 to strong sales and improved review scores. That track record has made the studio a recurring subject of speculation whenever a major IP — Tolkien's included — appears to lack an obvious home with an established developer.
The Lord of the Rings gaming licence has a complicated recent history. Warner Bros. Discovery holds rights to the franchise for games, having overseen titles across various quality tiers. The most commercially successful was Monolith Productions' Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which sold well on the strength of its Nemesis system. But the licence has also produced underperforming releases, and the current pipeline appears less active than in previous console cycles. Against that backdrop, speculation has centred on whether Warner Bros. might seek a new development partner to reinvigorate the franchise on current-generation hardware.
Warhorse's profile makes it a plausible candidate — but plausibility is not the same as confirmation. The studio has maintained a relatively independent production model, having self-published Kingdom Come: Deliverance through Koch Media (now Plaion) rather than signing with a major publisher at inception. That independence has allowed it to take creative risks that larger studios sometimes avoid. Whether it would surrender any of that creative latitude to develop inside the Tolkien universe remains an open question — and one the studio showed no inclination to answer on this occasion.
The gaming community has responded with the mixture of enthusiasm and scepticism that accompanies any licence speculation. Forums and social platforms have debated whether Warhorse's simulationist approach to combat and history is suited to the more fantastical demands of Tolkien's world — which includes magic, non-human species, and a higher baseline of worldbuilding assumption. Others have pointed to the studio's evident capacity for large-scale open-world production as sufficient qualification regardless of thematic fit.
What is clear is that the studio's next project — whatever it turns out to be — will arrive with elevated expectations. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II confirmed that Warhorse can handle the logistical and creative challenges of a major sequel, and the studio's stated commitment to preserving its development independence suggests it is not in a hurry to become a licensed-output machine. The Tolkien question may resolve itself in time. For now, the studio has said enough to confirm the speculation is being heard, without saying enough to confirm anything is happening.
This publication framed the story around Warhorse's formal response rather than the rumour cycle itself, treating Bittner's statement as a discrete news event rather than a continuation of fan speculation.