According to Amazon, the game is unrelated to the show, but there will be at least one key similarity. While Amazon has kept pretty quiet about the series, we know it will take place in the Second Age, which predates Tolkein’s most well-known novels. According to Athlon Games, the game will also be set “at a time long before the events of The Lord of the Rings.” It’s likely Amazon Game Studios chose that time to help distinguish its title from The Lord of the Rings Online, another massive online multiplayer game. And while it’s supposedly coincidental that both the Amazon series and game will explore the Second Age, it will be interesting to see how each approaches that lesser-known time.

To pull this off, Amazon Game Studios is partnering with PC gaming company Leyou. As you might remember, last fall, Leyou-owned Athlon Games announced that it had reached an agreement with Middle-earth Enterprises to develop and publish a Lord of the Rings video game. But at the time, it said only that it was working with “a partner.” While we know this game will be free-to-play and available on PCs and consoles, we don’t know yet when it will be ready, and it’s too soon to say which will arrive first, the game or the show.

In an interview with PCGamer, Daedalic CEO Carsten Fichtelmann says that we can expect the game in 2021, so it’s clearly early days yet — indeed, there aren’t any screenshots or concept art beyond the above logo. However, he did reveal that the game will concentrate on the character of Gollum. Not the Warner/Andy Serkis version of Gollum, though, as Daedalic has the rights to the books, not the movies, so it’ll have to put its own mark on Tolkien’s tricksy character.

Gollum’s no warrior, so it seems unlikely that the game will be one of high-octane action and fighting. But his troubled personality could very well give way to a game of stealth and intrigue. As Fichtelmann says, “You’ll come to decisions you have to make, and you’ll have the two voices talking to you. He may change his mind, and this is a clue about how it will play.” Other than this, there are no further details yet, although Fichtelmann rightly acknowledges that they’ve got a “big task” at hand.