After disappearing a year ago, LEGO Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are back on Steam

There’s a problem with making games almost exclusively linked to licensed properties: You never know when some kind of disagreement is going to result in an IP owner growing upset. That might not be the case for LEGO Lord of the Rings and LEGO The Hobbit. Maybe it was just a matter of the Lord of the Rings contract running its course and deals needing to be renegotiated. Whatever the case may be, both of those games developed by Traveller’s Tales mysteriously disappeared off Steam last year with no warning and zero explanation as to why. I guess no one really cared all that much because nobody took the time to actually dig into the matter. Hey, I love LEGO games but even I can acknowledge that these two weren’t particularly stand out entries.

Whatever the case may be, both games have now made their way back onto Steam, continuing the trend of zero explanations as to where they went and why they’re back all of a sudden. Might be the case that they disappear again in the future because someone over at Warner Bros. looked at the Tolkien estate with a menacing side-eye, so if you’re super into either LEGO games or Middle Earth, now might be the time to get on board. Sure, the LEGO Lord of the Rings and Hobbit games coast a little too much on the iconography of the film series but it’s always fun to collect loads of brightly coloured studs. I’m a simple man.

Last Updated: April 28, 2020