of the 2001 film The Fellowship of the Ring. New Line Cinema sent EA a copy of the script for Fellowship, as well as storyboards, concept art, and some very early trailers. In June 2001, by which time it had become apparent that a game based on The Fellowship was not going to happen, members of Stormfront Studios and EA Redwood Shores traveled to New Zealand to spend a week on the set, concentrating on the work being done for the 2002 film The Two Towers. Whilst in New Zealand, they also visited Weta Workshop, which were handling all of the special effects and props for the films. Several more visits to both the sets and Weta followed, and as late as July 2002, Stormfront remained in regular contact with the production team to ensure the game matched the finished film as closely as possible. In an October 2002 interview with IGN, producer Scott Evans addressed why the development team had decided to make an action game, as opposed to a role-playing game, arguing, Evans also explained that from the earliest stages of development, the team had access to rough cuts of the film, digital models and textures from the visual effects department, motion capture data, sound effects, soundtrack material, still photography from the set, Alan Lee and John Howe's pre-production concept art, and material from the props department. In the case of animating the character of Aragorn, the developers even had Viggo Mortensen and the swordmaster, Bob Anderson, came into the studio and perform some of the sword fighting techniques from the film, enabling the development team to recreate the physicality of the character exactly, frame by frame. The game was officially announced on February 19, 2002, when EA revealed that although it would be multi-platform, it was initially being developed by Stormfront Studios for the PlayStation 2. They revealed that players would be able to control Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli in full 3D environments taken directly from the films. On May 16, EA announced a Game Boy Advance version, developed by Griptonite Games, in which players could control Frodo, Aragorn, Legolas, Gandalf and Éowyn. This version would also feature co-op multiplayer through the Game Link Cable. Also on May 16, Ritual Entertainment advertised for staff to work on an unspecified Lord of the Rings game for Windows, to be published by EA. This was presumed to be a