There are very few fictional worlds as entrancing as Middle-Earth and few franchises as exciting to fantasy fans asThe Lord of the Rings.One of the most popular book series of all time, only made even more culturally relevant by its film adaptations, this magic land of good versus evil has been the setting forplenty of video games.
The franchise’s massive battles are always climactic and memorable, so it made sense that there would eventually be strategy games set in the same universe. There have been strategy games based onLOTRsince long before the movies were even in production, and then there have been plenty since,pulling from the visual style Jackson established. Games where players can insert themselves into the action that they’ve seen or read about and experience new conflicts made more cinematic than ever.
8J. R. R. Tolkien’s Riders Of Rohan
2/5 in Computer Gaming World Magazine
The spiritual successor to War in Middle-Earth which will come later on this list, this2D strategy game for IBMcomputers is for super fans only. The game is brutally difficult, requiring players to know exactly what happens in the books to be able to succeed.
Plus, due to the technical limitations of the time, the story is nonexistent, so even when players do beat levels, they will still need an encyclopedic knowledge of the source material to know what they accomplished.
3/5 in Computer Gaming World Magazine
War in Middle Earth
For the first time, Tolkien’s panoramic vision of the cataclysmic struggle between good and evil has been skillfilly crafted into a single computer game of epic proportions.Five man-years of detailed research and programming have been invested to ensure that this is the “definitive Tolkien computer game.” Selected elements of traditional Fantasy Role Playing, War strategy, and animated adventure games have been skillfully blended for a unique computer gaming experience.Follow in the footsteps of Frodo, Aragorn and Gandalf as they battle to get the ring to the Cracks of Doom. Ranged against you are all the evil forces of the Dark Lord Sauron and the corrupt wizard Saruman. The odds are overwhelming, but you cannot afford to fail. The destiny of Middle Earth lies in the balance.Roam at will across the 36-screen scrolling map of Middle Earth, wherein are contained thousands of digitized locations in which you can control a cast of over 80 animated characters and armies. Test your strategic abilities as you command entire legions to move against the forces of evil.With the almost infinite variety and multiple layers of play, War in Middle Earth is a game you can finish in days or weeks, or savor for months. It will delight and enthrall, and ultimately become a firm favorite in any software library.May your heroic efforts be met with success, and the forces of darkness be vanquished!
This 1988 title is somehow not the first LOTR video game, but it is one of the first to be a success. It’s a fully 2D RTS, where orcs and knights move all over the screen in a side-scroller fashion.
It manages to include army management, heroes, a battle map, and combat animations, all cutting edge at the time, and still worth taking a look at now just to see this weird artifact in action.
6Lord of the Rings: Tactics
64 on Metacritic
Bizarrely, the first of two portable exclusive tactics games on this list.This PSP gameplays out likeFinal Fantasy TacticsorX-Com,with the player controlling a squad of units and heroes in turn-based skirmishes.
The 3D looks nice and the gameplay is shockingly deep, with a high variety of units, multiple versatile maps, and some satisfying combat animations that make the battles feel as intense as aLOTRbattle should.
5Lord Of The Rings: War Of The Ring
67 on Metacritic
Technically a reskin of an RTS game calledBattle Realms, which itself was mostly considered a ripoff ofWarcraft 3, this is the series' first modern real-time strategy game. The player builds bases and develops units, then attacks and defends simultaneously using their newly formed army.
They can then also summonheroes to change the tideof the large battle. The game was a success, with players being excited by theLOTRcoat of paint over familiar strategy mechanics.
While the console version of the same name was a turn-based RPG, this game was a turn-based tactics game more akin toFire EmblemorAdvance Wars. Players command squads of soldiers, often having a hero character in their party as well.
They move their troops around a 2.5D grid, and then they attack enemy troops, triggering short battle animations that take place on a different screen in rough 3D. The game is weirdly deep for a GBA exclusive and still worth checking out.
Technically an expansion and not its own game, it still deserves recognition since it has an entirely new campaign and more than ten hours of new content. Thisexpansion to the hit RTSallows players to get evil.
Players can play as the evil side, controlling armies of orcs and other beasties. Summoning evil heroes like the Nazguls and the Balrog and watching them lay waste to human armies is an unbelievable sight that makes this expansion truly stand out as its own unique experience.
The definitiveLOTRRTS until, well, its sequel. This game allows players to experience the large-scale war of the franchise unlike any other, controlling a massive number of troops, defending bases, and attacking enemies all simultaneously.
DefendingHelm’s Deep or battling across Gondorfeels as high-stakes and large-scale as it does in the films, as heroes annihilate waves of enemy grunts. It’s no shock that this game was a massive hit.
This follow-up had a lot to live up to, and somehow more than delivered. It brings back all of the features from the first, with tweaked mechanics andplenty of new units and structures.It also brought the franchise to consoles for the first time, by getting Xbox 360 players in on the action.
Maybe most importantly, the game ran smoother and looked better than any before it, meaning the already cinematic battles somehow reached new heights.
