Warhorse Has Two New Games Coming and One of Them Is Set in Middle-earth
Yesterday's Warhorse Studios livestream was a lot to take in. Communications director Tobias Stolz-Zwilling and community manager Tom Grey sat down and basically announced the studio's entire roadmap at once. New Kingdom Come game. An open-world RPG set in Middle-earth. A Kingdom Come movie. All of it.
Let's break it down.
The New Kingdom Come Game
Warhorse confirmed the next Kingdom Come title will be an open-world RPG. It's being led by Prokop Jirsa, who was the lead designer on Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. So the guy who helped shape one of the better RPGs in recent memory is now running the whole thing. That's a good sign.
Launch window is next fiscal year, which for Embracer Group means somewhere between April 2027 and March 2028. So probably 2027, realistically. Not that far off.
KCD1 got an 8/10 when it came out in 2018. KCD2 pushed that to a 9/10. The studio is on an upward trajectory. I'm not going to pretend I'm not interested in where they go with a proper open-world take.
The Middle-earth Game Is the Real News Here
This one's the headline that's going to get buried under the Kingdom Come stuff, but it shouldn't. Warhorse is building an open-world RPG set in Middle-earth. Design director Viktor Bocan is leading that team.
Middle-earth games have had a rough few years. The Shadow of War era was fine. Nothing since has been memorable. A developer with Warhorse's track record taking a crack at it is genuinely interesting. They know how to build worlds with weight and texture.
There's almost no detail beyond that. No timeline, no setting within the lore, nothing. This could mean it's early. Like, very early. But the fact they're talking about it publicly probably means it's past the "is this actually happening" stage.
Also, There's a Movie
Game director Daniel Vávra has started work on a Kingdom Come film. That's it. That's all they said. This is the part I'm least sure what to do with. Game movies are still mostly bad. But Vávra is the person who built the Kingdom Come world from the ground up, so at minimum he's not some studio exec who bought the license.
Worth keeping an eye on. Not worth getting excited about yet.
The Bottom Line
Warhorse has two proper games in development. One is the follow-up to a series that keeps getting better. The other is a swing at one of the most beloved fictional universes in existence. Both are being led by people who shipped KCD2, which was genuinely excellent.
The Kingdom Come game has a real timeline. The Middle-earth project is further out, probably much further out. But the studio announcing both at once tells you they've got capacity and they're not just coasting on KCD2's success.
I'll be watching both.
Source: Ign