The first new title from the recently acquired Pandemic Studios developed for EA is called Lord of the Rings: Conquest. The project is done "in collaboration with New Line Cinema" -- the studio behind the three Lords of the Rings movies (not counting the animated movie from the 80ies, which strangely ended with the Alliance's victory at Helm's Deep). After the two Battle for Middle Earth strategy games and the Final Fantasy inspired PS2 RPG The Third Age, EA seems to bring the LotR franchise back into the action oriented realms of The Two Towers (2002) and Return of the King (2003). Says Andrew Goldman, co-founder of Pandemic: "Our teams have many years of experience in creating epic battlefields. We always wanted to apply that experience to a fantasy world with orks, warriors, archers, wizards and sieges."

Keeping in mind that Pandemic was responsible for the two acclaimed Star Wars Battlefront games which copied several elements of the tactical shooter Battlefield 1942, this most probably means a multiplayer oriented experience. But the first meager information on the official website (including some screenshots) does neither confirm nor disprove that
assumption: "Commandeer catapults, attack from horseback, fight man to man". In fact, many of the screenshots do not look exactly like multiplayer battles, but then again, they are clearly not real screenshots (with an interface etc.) but "staged" ones. EA states that you will see cave trolls, olifants, Balrog and even Sauron himself.

Speaking of the Dark Lord: You can not only lead the armies of the Alliance into Battle, but the forces of Sauron himself -- another very strong hint at a Battlefront inspired LoTR experience. Most of the locations mentioned on the webiste also sound like perfect battlefields for the two sides in a team oriented multiplayer action game:

1. The Shire
2. Weathertop
3. Rivendell
4. Moria
5. Isengard
6. Helm's Deep
7. Minas Tirith
8. Pelennor Fields
9. Osgiliath
10. Minas Morgul
11. The Black Gate
12. Mount Doom

Most locations still have a "coming soon" label attached, but clicking on Isengard (on the website) will give you screenshots in the topics "Cast Spells", "Strike from a Distance", "Defend the Bridge" and "Fight alongside the Ents". We're sure there's more information coming up shortly: The release of the game is planned for the fourth quarter of 2008 for PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS.