The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was published in 1954 and created a new wave of fantasy fans within the book community. This then led to cartoons, movies, shows, and, of course, video games. Most of the video games are based on the movies or books in some way, but there have been some games over the years that were more ambitious.
The Lord of the Rings, and all of its accompanying appendices and stories, helped inspire the following video games. They will be ranked based on their overall quality and not just based on their individual stories or action setups.
The Lord Of The Rings Online
An Expansive MMO
The Lord of the Rings Online launched in 2007, and the MMO has been going strong ever since. The current model is free to play for a basic setup, but there are expansions, and The Lord Of The Rings Online even runs on a Steam Deck. Since the launch version, a lot of content has been added or tweaked, but the core gameplay remains the same. Players can make their character using different visuals, races, and classes to build their hero.
They will go on quests in areas for NPCs from the books and films, but there is no grand overarching plot equivalent to the main story. That is to say, players will not be replacing the core heroes like Aragorn and Frodo. Still, as a solo or multiplayer MMO, players will get to level up and customize their hero, fight in typical battles with cooldown skills, and explore a rich world expanded from the source material. The only issue is that The Lord of the Rings Online has never been ported to consoles.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth 2
An RTS Worthy Of The Name
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth 2 is more of the same at its core, but also a bigger game overall. Players will still be able to choose a side, good or evil, from the start and begin a quest following canonical events from the films and expanded books never seen in a game before, or they can be evil and see what Middle-earth would be like if Sauron won. For example, the good campaign focuses a lot on the northern areas of the map during the main story, expanding and tweaking the lore to fit a video game setting better.
No matter what side players choose, they will go through a linear series of battles wherein they can build structures to support their army and then send out squads to scout or to wage war. It’s a typical RTS gameplay loop, but it makes a lot of sense within The Lord of the Rings universe. The best part of combat is initializing a power-up to turn the tides of battle, like summoning a Balrog to the battlefield. With different campaigns, modes, and ways to customize the experience, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth 2 was one RTS that worked on both consoles and PC systems.
The Lord Of The Rings: Conquest
Conquering Middle-earth One Map At A Time
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest was like a spinoff to the Star Wars: Battlefront games, and they were even developed by the same team: Pandemic Studios. In each battle, players could choose random characters and get to take on the role of more impressive ones like Gandalf or Sauron. Characters could attack with swords, use magic, shoot bows, and so on, all while trying to conquer points on a map.
The campaign could be waged on either side of the conflict, with the good campaign being more canonized and the evil campaign being the draw for longtime fans of The Lord of the Rings. Taking over the Shire and commanding armies of orcs was a thrill. While short, The Lord of the Rings: Conquest provided a great multiplayer experience, whether players were online or teaming up on the couch together. Unlike the Star Wars: Battlefront games, this spinoff was less successful and didn’t lead to any sequels, and finding it now is tricky.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age
The Lord Of Turn-Based RPGs
The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age was sort of a spinoff to the films, or at least it was made thanks to the success of the game adaptations published by EA, like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, along with Final Fantasy 10 dominating the PS2. There are even cutscenes from the movie in this game as it takes place alongside the main events with Berethor, a soldier of Gondor, chasing after Boromir. Players found allies on their quest along the way, from dwarves to elves, and combat was fought in turn-based battles.
Players could choose attacks, skills, items, and so on, and the overall design looked a lot like Final Fantasy 10 in a positive way. The difficulty could spike at times, but never in any major, severe ways, and the dungeons were simple in design, along with the story following familiar notes to the books and movies. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age may not appear on any best-of lists for PS2 RPG masterpieces, but it is certainly a hidden gem that more players would have enjoyed back in the day had they given it a chance.
Read the full article on GameRant
This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
