Even as Lord of the Rings Online prepares to unleash Minas Morgul next week, Amazon Game Studios is working in the background to fashion its own Middle-earth MMORPG. Now Amazon is hiring for several positions to help build this so-far untitled game’s world, including a narrative designer, game director, and art director.
The narrative designer job description itself gives fans a glimpse of this project’s potential: “This designer will work with our design director to tell gripping tales of Middle-earth, its history, and its peoples, building world settings, lore, in-game stories, and cinematics for Amazon’s upcoming massively multiplayer The Lord of the Rings game. We aspire to tell all-new stories inside a beloved, highly-detailed IP. A successful candidate will have deep familiarity with the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as a career history of creating memorable characters and story arcs in video games.”
In another job description, Amazon said, “We aspire to make a game that is ‘different at a glance’ from The Lord of the Rings games and media that came before us.”
Amazon is collaborating with China’s Leyou for the game, having put together a new team with “veteran developers who have worked on Everquest, Destiny, PlanetSide, World of Warcraft, Defiance, RIFT, and other popular MMOs.”