The One Ring RPG has been cast into the flames

I've been a lifelong Tolkein lover, but I've never bought a copy of The One Ring purely because I don't really have much time for RPGs any more. But I thought I might finally relent and get a copy as a Christmas treat, just to read you know. And I found this on the Cubicle 7 Website

Date Posted: 27-11-2019

UNEXPECTED TOR2 UPDATE

'I am with you at present,' said Gandalf, 'but soon I shall not be. I am not coming to the Shire.'

We have some very unfortunate and unexpected news to share. Contractual differences arose recently which we have been unable to resolve, and so we have decided to end our licensing agreement with Sophisticated Games. It is with regret that we have made this very tough decision to withdraw.

This means we will cease publishing The One Ring and Adventures in Middle-earth™ in the first half of 2020. Unfortunately, this doesn’t give us enough time to release the much-anticipated The One Ring – The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game second edition.

As many of you know, our first edition of The One Ring is eight years old, and we had high hopes of a full product line to support our second edition. Our team have worked incredibly hard on this new edition; with many of the announced titles already written and edited, so being very close to completion makes this decision even harder.

Although we were very close to the finish line when these issues arose, as gamers ourselves we did not feel it was right for the game, or fair to you, to release a new edition which we would be unable to support.

We appreciate how passionate so many of you are, especially those who have followed our journey from first edition or have pre-ordered the second edition. Thank you for your support over the years.

That's copied and pasted from the Cubicle 7 website, which has crashed under the strain of people trying to read it. And I'm sad, although nowhere near as sad as all the people at Cubicle 7 and all the people who worked on the upcoming new edition.

I don't imagine anyone is selling a copy, although now might be an excellent time to do so if you were on the fence about offloading.

Wow, I have always been on the fence about picking up TOR or Adventures in Middle Earth. At this point, I was just planning on waiting until second edition to pick it up.

Just ordered the 2 AiME books I didn't have from their clearance sale. Shame we'll never get the Rohan Region Guide or the Moria box-set.

Shame, it's a really good RPG. I'm a fan of role-playing games who's systems are very much tied to the theme. I was on the fence about getting this - what swung me was the fact that one of the games skills is 'smoking'. The Darkening of Mirkwood campaign is a modern masterpiece in my opinion.