Me and my group started playing The Hobbit Saga Expansion today and the player controlling Bilbo was eliminated due to reaching the threat limit. The rulebook says 'If Bilbo Baggins leaves play, for any reason, the players immediately lose the game.'

So, does he leaves play or is he transferred to the next player ? Because the rule for elimination states that 'All of the cards he controls, and his deck are placed in their owners’ discard piles.' Is the eliminated player the owner of Bilbo ?

Doesn't control of Bilbo pass the the next player, preventing the party's immediate loss?

I would lean towards player elimination causing Bilbo to leave play and thus a group loss.

Without someone finding any contrary text/advice I don't see how he isn't discarded when the player is eliminated. As best I can tell those discards would all happen before the first player token moves.

"During the refresh phase, all exhausted cards ready, each player increases his threat by 1, and the first player passes the first player token to the next player clockwise on his left." Assuming those actions are done in the order listed, the player would be eliminated before passing the token.

Some time ago there have been a discussion and official answer here.

Thank you all for the clarification, I guess we'll have to retry the scenario then, without a problem tho, it is so fun !