{"id":6590,"date":"2026-05-14T14:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/?p=6590"},"modified":"2026-05-14T14:51:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:51:23","slug":"asmodee-unveils-first-slate-of-publishers-picked-to-make-new-lord-of-the-rings-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/14\/asmodee-unveils-first-slate-of-publishers-picked-to-make-new-lord-of-the-rings-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Asmodee unveils first slate of publishers picked to make new Lord of the Rings games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Asmodee<\/a>\u00a0has revealed the first slate of partner companies it has picked to make Lord of the Rings-themed board games and accessories, six months after becoming the steward of the hugely lucrative Middle-earth licence for the tabletop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Endeavor: Deep Sea<\/a> co-publisher Grand Gamers Guild, Ascension<\/a> publisher Stone Blade Entertainment, and Play to Z, the board game publisher created by Z-Man Games founder Zev Schlasinger<\/a>, have all been selected by Asmodee to produce new Lord of the Rings titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are joined by dice and tabletop accessories maker Sirius Dice, and Game Toppers, which announced separately that it will be creating Lord of the Rings-themed gaming tables, mats and other accessories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individual projects from most of those publishers are still under wraps, although last month Stone Blade announced it would be bringing a Lord of the Rings-themed version of its Ascension deckbuilding game to Gamefound<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asmodee has had an impressive run of success with Lord of the Rings-themed releases in the last couple of years, with games including 7 Wonders Duel<\/a>-reworking Duel for Middle Earth<\/a>, The Fellowship of the Ring – Trick-Taking Game<\/a>, and Matt Leacock’s pandemic-inspired Fate of the Fellowship<\/a> all picking up both critical acclaim and a string of awards<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The board game giant was previously the sister company of Middle-earth Enterprises when both businesses were owned by video games major Embracer Group<\/a>, before Asmodee was spun off as an independent operation early last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Asmodee was given power over the tabletop licence by Middle-earth Enterprises last October, the initial reaction from some publishers was that they would struggle to get a look in, with Asmodee likely to reserve the best opportunities for Lord of the Rings releases for itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to BoardGameWire a couple of weeks after Asmodee became manager of the licence for tabletop<\/a>, however, Luke Peterschmidt – the tabletop veteran tasked with running the Middle-earth operation at the company – was at pains to quash that line of thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Luke Peterschmidt, head of active category management at Asmodee<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

He said at the time, “Our job is to make the right number of Middle-earth games at the right pace, so that every game has space to breathe, and there is a Middle-earth game or gaming accessory for every type of game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That’s the mission, and no part of that mission says, ‘and Asmodee makes all the games’.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added, “It is absolutely fair to have that thought in your head, and it’s our job to prove that thought wrong. And, I mean, literally nothing I say, I think, could convince anybody other than action. So yeah, it’s got to be the action, we’ve got to follow it up.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement announcing the first slate of partner companies, Peterschmidt said, “There may be The One Ring to rule them all, but it takes many publishers to satisfy the gaming needs of The Lord of the Rings fans and I\u2019m sure each of our partners are going to do their part in that quest.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asmodee’s own Lord of the Rings-themed releases this year are currently set to include The Lord of the Rings: The King’s Gambit, which its studio Space Cowboys is developing in partnership with Restoration Games. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That title is a reimagining of turn-of-the-millennium Avalon Hill release Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit, which is based around four battles that take place during the events of Star Wars film The Phantom Menace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publishers interested in pitching a Middle-earth game to Asmodee can do so by emailing METTGlicensing@asmodee.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more stories like this direct to your email inbox, click here to sign up for BoardGameWire’s free email newsletter. \n\nAnd if you’ve found our reporting interesting or useful, please consider a paid subscription to help support our journalism!<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Endeavor: Deep Sea co-publisher Grand Gamers Guild, Ascension publisher Stone Blade Entertainment, and Play to Z, the board game publisher created by Z-Man Games founder Zev Schlasinger, have all been selected by Asmodee to produce new Lord of the Rings titles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2357,97,6,135,2108,2356,1338,2072,2074,562,267,2358,173,2359],"class_list":["post-6590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ascension","tag-asmodee","tag-board-game","tag-board-games","tag-fate-of-the-fellowship","tag-grand-gamers-guild","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-middle-earth","tag-middle-earth-enterprises","tag-play-to-z","tag-publisher","tag-stone-blade-entertainment","tag-z-man-games","tag-zev-schlasinger"],"blocksy_meta":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6590"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6618,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6590\/revisions\/6618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boardgamewire.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}