It was less than a month ago that I was in mourning for the LEGO Lord of the Rings theme, as I lamented the release of what was expected to be the final two Lord of the Rings minifigures: the Bard and Bain figures included with the Target exclusive Hobbit Battle of Five Armies Blu-Ray release. But things have unexpectedly changed since last month in a big way with the announcement of the dimension-hopping LEGO Dimensions video game. And as part of the first wave of expansion packs, Lord of the Rings returns: it’s the LEGO Dimensions Gollum, Gimli and Legolas sets!

As some observant fans have noticed, there are a couple of surprising (or not-so-surprising) themes that have been omitted from the upcoming LEGO Dimensions video game (at least for now): absolutely anything owned by Disney, including Star Wars and Marvel. Without having the two most popular action themes to fall back on, that put Warner Home Video in an interesting quandary as far as filling the action-oriented gaps in the video game.

Enter the Lord of the Rings. After six movies and a successful near five-year run with Lord of the Rings and Hobbit construction sets, Lord of the Rings was almost definitely the best remaining license for Warner Bros. to fall back on. As such, Gandalf will be arriving in the LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack, and a trio of Fun Pack will be available as part of the first wave of expansion sets!

Perhaps the most popular member of the Fellowship (particularly among female fans) makes his minifigure return as part of the LEGO Dimensions Legolas Fun Pack 71219! While we’ve gotten numerous Legolas figures over the years–including in The Hobbit sets that just came out last year–I think Legolas is an appealing enough character that many fans will want to buy this figure to control Legolas in the video game, even if they already own the Legolas minifigure once (or ten times).

Legolas comes with a brick-built arrow launcher, which looks, well… silly. The arrow launcher will hopefully be fun to use in-game, but as an accessory, I’m not terribly fond of it.

One of the more bizarre–and interesting–Fun Packs released in the first wave will feature two of the most memorable villains from the Lord of the Rings: Gollum and Shelob the Great! As this set contains unique characters, I’d consider it to be the strongest of the three Lord of the Rings Dimensions Fun Packs.

The Gollum minifigure looks exactly the way it did in its several other previous releases, but Gollum hasn’t been in circulation for a while, so I imagine some fans will be really pleased to get the chance to pick him up again.

Meanwhile, we’re getting the second-ever brick-built Shelob the Spider figure as part of this set, and while I’d hesitate to call it “cute”, it’s definitely less terrifying than the original, full-sized Shelob! I’ll be really curious to see how players are able to utilize Shelob in the video game, and whether or not you’ll be able to actually control her or just use her a tool in some fashion.

Finally, we come to the last of the three Lord of the Rings Dimensions expansion packs, featuring my favorite non-Hobbit member of the Fellowship of the Ring: Gimli! While the Gimli minifigure was released a ton of times over the past few years, all of the sets that Gimli was part of are now discontinued. As a result, by the time this LEGO Dimensions Gimli Fun Pack 71220 ships out in the fall, it should be the sole way to pick up a Gimli figure at retail.

The main accessory included with 71220 Gimli Fun Pack is a brick-built “axe chariot”, which is a new vehicle that’s been devised specifically for the video game. At a glance it’s not particularly alluring, but I’ve a hunch that the Axe Chariot will be loads of fun in-game!

The LEGO Dimensions Lord of the Rings Legolas, Gollum and Gimli sets are now available for order, and are scheduled to be released in September 2015. Each set will carry a retail price of $14.99, and I imagine that these particular three sets may be some of the easier ones to acquire at launch (although if the video game is a blockbuster hit, who knows?).

Are you happy to see the Tolkien universe return in brick form for the LEGO Dimensions video game, Lord of the Rings fans? Or would you have preferred if the whole Tolkien franchise had been given a bit more of a break before coming back?