EA Assembles White Council Rings Game

Project Gray Company, headed by the guy that's been concentrating on Lord of the Rings games at EA, is now a next-gen... Lord of the Rings game.

EA has been dropping hints during the year about a new game being worked on by Steve Gray whose previous work includes a raft of Lord of the Rings games for EA. Until now the game was known as Project Gray Company, but EA pulled back the covers this week, revealing Lord of the Rings: The White Council.

Yes, it's another Lord of the Rings games from EA, but this one is a little different. It's a full RPG where you play an ancillary character in a story inspired by the movies and the books - and it's coming to next-gen consoles.

According to Rings canon, the White Council was a group assembled to counter the growing power of the region Dol Guldur. It counts as members some of heavies from the story, including Gandalf, Saruman, Galadriel and Elrond. Your goal is to take your character - man, elf, dwarf or hobbit - and ally him (or her) to the council by showing your mettle in the game's open world.

"Our extremely talented and dedicated team is committed to creating an incredible new experience for fans of The Lord of the Rings and role playing gamers," promises Gray. "With its next generation gameplay and epic new storyline, we think The Lord of the Rings: The White Council will be a huge success."

There's still a long wait until we'll get to try it out, though. EA is expecting to release the game for Xbox, PC and PlayStation 3 sometime towards the end of 2007, giving you plenty of time to read through the book or perhaps make it halfway through the movies.

Check out the newly launched (but still sparsely populated) official site for more.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo Games