Previous entry: The Lord of the Rings, Vol. II: The Two Towers
Next entry: Manic Miner: The Hobbit
Back to the Tolkien games home page

The Lord of the Rings, Vol. III: The Return of the King

Produced by: Interplay Productions
Author: Scott Bennie, Mark Whittlesey, et al.
Year: Originally scheduled to be released in 1992
System: MS-DOS
Type: First designed as an RPG, later as a strategy game
Covers: The Return of the King
Distribution: Not released
Availability: Not available
Licensed: By the Tolkien estate

Development was started on this the third part of Interplay's The Lord of the Rings series. Preliminary design was made for an RPG, similar to the first two parts, but before any work was done on that it was decided to turn it into a strategy game instead. Some design was made for that version, along with a little code and graphics.

The project was then put on ice due to low sales of Vol. II. It was decided to turn the project into Realmswar in the AD&D Forgotten Realms series. That game, too, was cancelled in the end.

By the looks of things today, Interplay will never get to make the third part. Even if it was suddenly decided that the market is ready for another try, the Tolkien Estate will currently not approve any computer game designs, waiting for their contract with Beam Software to expire (see the FAQ for further details).

Net resources

See also