Bad news for fans of LEGO, Lord of the Rings, and buying things: Warner Bros. has taken The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit away from us—possibly forever.
The saga seemingly began when the two games were free on the Humble Store last month, sparking debate over whether new games were on the horizon—or perhaps just a finished version of The Hobbit, which only covered the first two Hobbit movies, and never actually got the promised DLC to cover the final movie.
Unfortunately, it turns out that this was just a last-ditch effort to get the games in people’s hands before it disappeared.
The two Tolkien-based games, which were made by UK studio Traveller’s Tales and published by Warner Bros., can still be found on Steam, but without a purchase link. For anyone who already owns one, or both of the games, this means they’re still playable. For anyone who just got the games from Humble, though, the keys will expire soon, so get downloadin’.
PC Gamer notes that Alan Wake was taken down in a similar way in 2017 because of licensing issues, but was restored to the store after the issues were resolved.
Could Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit be facing the same troubles? Will they ever come back? For now, all we have is the word of a Warner Bros. representative:
“Lego: The Lord of the Rings and Lego: The Hobbit will no longer be available for sale in digital stores. The games will remain in players’ libraries if they already own them.”
Comments
4 responses to “Warner Bros. Pulls LEGO Lord Of The Rings Games From Steam, Doesn’t Say Why”
It’s probably because Amazon has the rights to The Lord of the Rings IP now.
Yeah and their own store, your going to see allot of games being pulled from steam for this kind of reason in 2019.
If its a licence expiration issue… WHY DO NONE OF THESE GAMES EVER ANNOUNCE A FINAL SALE! They would rake in so much money due to scarcity fears.
Marvel and Disney are notorious with limiting their IP in this way. Old Spiderman Wolverine XMen and Deadpool are unavailable… so that just promotes piracy.
The Tolkien estate is pretty strict nowadays with the LOTR rights. So its no surprise something like this would happen eventually.
Because it’s their precious (eh, eh, eh?)