Bad news for MultiVersus as Embracer to acquire The Lord of the Rings video game rights
Video game publishing giant Embracer Group are acquiring the IP rights to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which could spell bad news for MultiVersus fans hoping to fight as Gandalf and Legolas.
With Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show releasing in September, Tolkien’s world has seen a major pop culture resurgence. Weta Workshop have partnered with Take-Two to develop a new game inspired by the books, and Gollum is set to release later this year.
This has all happened around the same time as MultiVersus‘ arrival, a free-to-play fighting game that leakers believed was set to bring Lord of the Rings characters Gandalf and Legolas to battle the likes of Harley Quinn, Arya Stark, and Morty from Rick and Morty.
This has been put up in the air by Embracer Group announcing that they are purchasing the IP rights to everything Tolkien, giving them full control over the development of video games in the Lord of the Rings universe.
Embracer are a super-publisher that owns some of gaming’s biggest studios such as Borderlands developers Gearbox and THQ Nordic, as well as the rights to franchises such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Thief.
Early leaks indicated that Gandalf would arrive in MultiVersus, and Legolas was later found in the game files alongside soundtracks from the movies. However, MultiVersus leaker ‘Susie’ reported on August 15 that Lord of the Rings content appears to have been cut from the game.
They explained that they couldn’t find the Eye of Sauron trophy, the Barad-dur background was replaced, and “they completely removed the Mordor and Hobbiton tracks from the files.” While they said there were still a few mentions, “most things LotR related have been removed.”
The leaker only spotted this a couple of days before Embracer announced they are in the process of acquiring the video game rights to The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. While nothing is confirmed, this makes it all the more likely that MultiVersus’ Lord of the Rings content was cut ahead of launch due to the acquisition.
For more MultiVersus, you can check out everything we know about Season 2, as well as its player count since launch.
Image Credit: New Line Cinema