Weta, the company founded by Peter Jackson and best known for its visual effects work for Lord of the Rings, has revealed through a job advertisement that its gaming division is working on a new video game based upon a "major worldwide IP".
A post advertising for the position on Weta's Facebook page states that a successful candidate will be involved in helping the team create "cutting edge games" including the studio's next release which is based on "an incredibly rich and inspiring license that will fill fans and players around the world with delight."
According to the vacancy post listed on Weta Workshop's website, the company is looking for a game producer to deliver Weta's next PC and console project, which is said to be based on a "major worldwide IP very close to [their] hearts."
While this could suggest that the game may have links to the Lord of the Rings franchise, given that Weta is best known for its visual effects work on Peter Jackson's trilogy of films, the post stops short of making any further connections. With the studio also having worked on a number of other major projects including King Kong, Wonder Woman, Avatar, and more recently Marvel's Shang-Chi, there's definitely enough ambiguity there to leave questions surrounding what the project might be.
Weta initially launched its gaming division in 2012. Since then, the studio has worked on a number of games including the multiplayer VR game Combonauts. Earlier this month, game engine developer Unity announced its intent to purchase Weta for an estimated $1.62 billion with plans to integrate the company's tech and assets into Unity's cloud platform so that anyone can use them.
While it's still currently unclear whether Weta's upcoming game will be based around the Lord of the Rings franchise, Middle Earth fans are still set to get a healthy dose of (non-film trilogy related) gaming content through Daedalic's Lord of the Rings: Gollum. Earlier this year, it was announced that the studio had partnered with Nacon to publish the game – though this also came with a further announcement stating that the game had been delayed until 2022.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.