At this point, you’d think free-to-play developers like NetEase would have run out of brands to slap on top of the typical free-to-play genres we’re all familiar with, and then a new disappointing announcement comes rolling in. It would appear that NetEase is working on a licensed The Lord of the Rings game, which just popped up on the Play Store for pre-registration. It’s called The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War, and even though neither the Play Store trailer nor the screenshots show a lick of gameplay, we already know this title will land as a typical free-to-play kingdom builder.
The above Play Store trailer is simply a cinematic, so there isn’t any gameplay in the video, and honestly, the trailer is hardly impressive, thanks to 3D animation that looks like it belongs in a game trailer from 2002. It’s like NetEase isn’t even trying, but seeing that this lack of effort tends to make similar companies millions with each new branded release, I doubt this trend will stop anytime soon.
Of course, if you’d prefer to see what the actual gameplay looks like, this let’s play video from Techzamazing should be infinitely more informative than NetEase’s offering.
More or less, The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War is a kingdom-building game where you’ll build a settlement, assemble an army, and join factions to take on other player groups with the combined effort of your armies. Nothing we haven’t seen a million times over, but this time with a LoTR skin. What’s really crazy is that NetEase apparently paid for access to actor likenesses, so Rise to War is an officially licensed game that exists in the LoTR movie world created by Peter Jackson.
The Lord of the Rings: Rise to War will be officially released on September 23rd across America, Europe, Oceania, and Southeast Asia. Pre-registration begins today, currently available on the Play Store and the game’s website. Rise to War has already undergone testing in Australia and the Philippines, and so if you’d like to take the game for a spin, you’ll have to wait until next month, and if you pre-register on the Play Store, you’ll receive a notification the day it’s released.
