Years ago, EA Redwood Shores was working on a Lord of the Rings game called The Lord of the Rings: The White Council, and it had bold ambitions as an open-world RPG. However, EA announced in 2007 that it had put the game on hiatus, and it was effectively canceled.

But why? Developers who worked on it spoke to The Gamer about the project, and one of the reasons was that EA simply didn't want to take on another big-budget project after releasing The Godfather in 2006.

"EA was just coming off shipping The Godfather, which was a big and really expensive project that had gone way over budget and schedule," executive producer Steve Gray said. "I just think there wasn't appetite for another big over the top project."