Here's an interesting one! Developer Jon Burton, who founded studio Traveller's Tales back in the 1980s, has posted a video to his GameHut YouTube channel showcasing an unreleased Lord of the Rings videogame demo.
In the video, Burton explains that the intention behind this LOTR demo was actually to use it as a pitch for a Hobbit game based around the then-upcoming movie. He shows off lots of gameplay of various levels, and also reveals that the team went "spent way too much money" working on it - over $1,000,000!
To make things worse, while Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro (then director of the film) were reportedly very positive about the pitch, Warner Bros ultimately decided they didn't want a game based on the movie itself but one that "happened in the same world at the same time," so the project was never greenlit.
You can check out all the highly intriguing footage in the video above, and Burton has hinted that he'll be showing off full playthroughs of the demo's various sections in the future.
What do you think of the Lord of the Rings demo footage? Let us know your thoughts below.
[source youtu.be]
Comments 3
Those levels look amazing. I'm conflicted: it's a shame the game never got made but as Jon says, the Hobbit films were nowhere near as good as LOTR.
I think the pitch looked fantastic and I’d have loved to play the full game. I still enjoyed the Hobbit films, but I also was able to separate the experience from the book and kind of take it for what it was.
While this looks great, my experience tells me that the actual end experience for this would have been a chore.
Just think of any movie tie in game, especially those that try to follow the exact same story and scenes from the movies, and compare them to stand alone games like the Arkham or Spider-man game.
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