Melbourne House released The Hobbit in 1982. This title featured interactive characters that moved between locations independent of the player and included an Inglish text parser capable of accepting full-sentence commands.
Interplay collaborated with Electronic Arts to release Lord of the Rings Vol I in 1990 and Vol II: The Two Towers in 1991. These role-playing games appeared primarily on PC and Amiga systems before Sierra On-Line cancelled a Troika Games project in 2002 when they shut down their development studio.
Electronic Arts obtained licenses for Peter Jackson's film trilogy while Vivendi Games secured rights to produce games based directly on Tolkien's books from Tolkien Enterprises. EA produced adaptations of The Two Towers and The Return of the King without covering The Fellowship of the Ring, while Vivendi produced a game covering only the first volume using book material not present in the films.
Turbine Inc announced exclusive rights to create massively multiplayer online role-playing games in May 2005 and launched The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar on the 24th of April 2007. Subsequent updates doubled the game world to include Moria, Lothlorien, Mirkwood, Isengard, and Rohan with expansions arriving between November 2008 and October 2012.
Aragorn's Quest became the first title under Warner Bros after they gained the license following the sale of Middle-earth Enterprises to Embracer Group. Monolith Productions created a two-game non-canon spin-off series set between Hobbit and Lord of the Rings events where Talion serves as main protagonist bonding with Elf spirit Celebrimbor gaining wraith-like powers against adversaries.