The Lord of the Rings Online is known for two things: For being a successful MMORPG implementation of the Lord of the Rings universe – and for now having rather old-fashioned graphics. The latter could change in a few years, because in one Investor presentation the publisher announced that it is planning a major graphics update for Lord of the Rings Online.
Lord of the Rings Online gets graphics update for 2022
One reason for this is said to be the Lord of the Rings series planned and eagerly awaited by Amazon, which is currently announced for 2021, but has already been extended for a second season. The presentation says that Lord of the Rings will be online in 2022 »Visual and technical updates for PC and Nextgen planned to benefit from Amazon’s large public investment in the Lord of the Rings series. ”
Amazon is currently not only working on the series, but also on a new MMO in the LotR universe – which should apparently run independently of the existing Lord of the Rings Online. This means that the company is also competing directly with LOTRO.
Lord of the Rings Online remains popular
The Lord of the Rings Online originally appeared in 2007 and has been updated by the developers with numerous addons since then. A significant graphic update has not yet been included. It is still considered real community favorite, because it creates a believable Lord of the Rings atmosphere like hardly any other game and lets us play at the same time as the events of the books and films.
That said, we also meet well-known characters like Gandalf, Frodo and Legolas while we have our very own adventure. Judging by its presentation, the MMO remains popular with its gamers. About 108,000 players return to Middle-earth every month. 41,000 of them have a monthly subscription.
The publisher has not yet revealed more about the planned graphics and technology update, but we will of course stay tuned for you and keep you up to date with all the news. Until then, you can already get a foretaste of a modern Lord of the Rings graphic: We’ll show you how atmospheric the Shire can look in Unreal Engine 4.
