Pandemic and Electronic Arts have announced The Lord of the Rings Conquest, a new action title set in the Tolkien Universe, set for a global release in (Australian Spring) 2008 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and Nintendo DS. The game is being handled by the Pandemic crew that brought us the Star Wars Battlefront games, operating out of Pandemic Studio's Los Angeles headquarters, not to be confused with the Brisbane team who are yet to reveal the secret project they are currently working on.

Set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” universe as depicted by the Academy Award®-winning films, players will finally fight the entirety of these epic battles any way they want. In addition to crusading as the heroic forces of good, for the first time ever in a ‘The Lord of the Rings’ action title they’ll conquer Middle-earth while playing as the legions of Sauron’s evil army, including Cave-trolls, Oliphaunts, the Balrog and Sauron himself.

The first screenshots from The Lord of the Rings: Conquest can be found here in our brand-spanking-new AusGamers games library.

for the first time ever in a ‘The Lord of the Rings’ action title they’ll conquer Middle-earth while playing as the legions of Sauron’s evil army, including Cave-trolls, Oliphaunts, the Balrog and Sauron himself.

I wish I could talk about some of the really cool things the player can do when playing as the bad guys ... The demos/videos I've seen from that project is absolutely amazing.

What type of game is the DS version going to be?

So it's Battlefield: Middle Earth?

One only hopes there's some effort made, not just a rehash of BF/SW:Battlefront with different graphics/models/maps.