The Lord of the Rings is possibly one of the most successful media franchises in history, even when it was still just a series of books, later becoming made into what is considered one of the greatest film trilogies of all time directed by Peter Jackson in the early 2000s. Although there are noticeable differences between the original books and the later film franchise, the art style of the latter has become iconic and highly recognizable and influenced other pieces of Middle-earth inspired media, such as that of Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, which take place in their own respective interpretations of Tolkien’s works; when people think of The Lord of the Rings, they’re often imagining something from Jackson’s universe.
Many games were spawned as a result of the movies’ success, such as The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Return of the King games, The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth, or Lord of the Rings: Conquest. One game connected to the movies released in 2011, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, aimed to tell a story in the same universe as the movies that also incorporated aspects of Tolkien’s stories not featured in Jackson’s universe, based around a pivotal battle that took place in the northern reaches of Middle-earth and is even remarked about by Gandalf in Return of the King. “At the end of The Return of the King, Gandalf mentions a great battle that took place in Erebor, and says that if the Dwarves and Men there hadn’t won that battle, the war could have been lost even if the One Ring had been destroyed. Frodo’s quest was extremely important, but everyone in Middle-earth was drawn into the War of the Ring” remarked producer Ruth Tomandl in Q&A with GameSpot from 2011.
The game would follow three protagonists, that being a human ranger named Eradan, an elf named Andriel, and a dwarf named Farin, who players can choose from one of to play as at the start of each mission across the game where they aim to stop Agandaûr, a Black Númenórean working for Sauron as the latter focuses on conquering Rohan and Gondor. Each character fulfills a certain gameplay niche, with Eradan being stealth, Andriel being ranged magic, and Farin being melee. Players could play with two other people via online co-op, although the game could also be completed via solo play.
War in the North would receive mixed or average reviews upon release, and also failed to perform commercially, selling only three-quarters of million units worldwide on all platforms. One would think this game would be left in the dustbin of history, forgotten about and left to fade with time, especially in a time like now where many IP’s from the past are practically erased due to poor efforts at game preservation made by publishers who own the rights to these franchises. However, a leak from the end of this past July hinted at a re-release to come, and lo and behold on August 11th the game suddenly shadow-dropped on modern consoles and PC, priced at $17.99 until August 25th, where the price will increase to $19.99. The new version, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North- Legacy Edition, provides numerous improvements that have helped breathe new life into the game, including 60 FPS, more save slots, locking onto enemies, better UI data, hot-swapping characters during missions, bug fixes, etc. So far the game has been well-received by fans, sitting at “Very Positive” on Steam.
This isn’t the only The Lord of the Rings game getting a return either. According to publisher Aspyr, other classic titles are on the way to getting a re-release, although nothing else has been named so far, leaving fans of Middle-earth to speculate as to what’s next. Personally, I’d love to see the game adaptations of the movies, like the previously mentioned The Two Towers and The Return of the King games, see a return, not just due to my childhood nostalgia of playing them, but due to their arguably great gameplay and replayability.