Lord Of The Rings And Tiger Woods Have More In Common Than You Think
Did you know The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King game and the Tiger Woods series are directly tied to one another?
07th Dec 2022 13:09
Images via EA
Lord Of The Rings And Tiger Woods Have More In Common Than You Think
Did you know The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King game and the Tiger Woods series are directly tied to one another?
07th Dec 2022 13:09
Images via EA
When you think of The Lord of the Rings, you don't exactly imagine Gandalf using his staff as a golf club, do you? But it may shock you to know, the movie tie-in game has more in common with the sport than you think.
Did you know the 2003 movie tie-in to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King used EA's Tiger Woods games to help create it? It’s an unusual crossover, but one that led to a fan-favourite title being made.
One Does Not Simply Walk Onto The Golf Course
Speaking to WIRED and answering answers from Twitter, the director of The Callisto Protocol, Glen Schofield, revealed all about the unknown history of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. While many players believe movie tie-ins are a quick cash grab with very little effort put into crafting them, the process this time around was a bit more laborious.
When accused of being lazy for being a startup studio and not making their own engine for The Callisto Protocol, Schofield had some choice words to say on the matter:
“Wow, okay, well, my teams have made plenty of engines and they are hard. They take years and years, especially nowadays. You need to take an old engine and rework it. But making an engine from scratch in today’s market is going to take you years and millions of dollars, and you’ll still get it wrong."
To perfectly encapsulate this message, Schofield went on to speak about his time at EA, and how work on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was challenging, but a saviour was found in the form of Tiger Woods.
About a year into the game's development, the team had been working on a new engine specifically for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but were coming in close to the wire to tie in with the film's release. Luckily, some creativity saved the day:
"The Lord of the Rings is about large areas, and then sort-of a castle at the end or a fortress. What's like that? Tiger Woods. Long areas, and at the end is where you go get food when you’re done. And so, we took the Tiger Woods engine and turned it into a Lord of the Rings engine.”
We Must Go Back!
It wasn’t a one-way relationship either, as The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King apparently came in to help Tiger Woods down the line.
A former EA developer also shared their experience and claimed it all to be true, but also added that the code for VFX in Tiger Woods PSP used The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. How so? By using certain aspects such as smoke when hitting the ball.
We often forget how close-knit the games industry can be, with cross collaboration across the board. This is one of the rare examples developers open up about their experience and showcase just how much work goes into creating these experiences.
Now, where’s the story of the PAW Patrol games using Manhunt resources?
About The Author
Daniel Hollis
Daniel is a former Guides Writer for GGRecon. Having originally focused on film journalism, he eventually made the jump to writing about games in 2020, writing for sites such as NME. Eurogamer, GamesRadar, Tech Radar, and more. After a short stint in PR, he is back in the world of games media writing about his favourite games, including Bioshock, Fable, or everything Fortnite and Xbox Game Pass related.
