Warcraft 3 lotr mod3/8/2024 ![]() ![]() I imagine Fantasy Battle as a universe created by some sort of Tolkien obsessive who got a little too lost in the ’80s. And yes, you can recreate those wonderful Osgiliath choke points against droves of orcs, goblins, trolls, and war machines.īut you can also battle undead Egyptian pharaohs with shape-shifting dragons vampires can square off with armies of tree people ancestral dwarven ghosts can dodge the meteor-infused Gatling gun bullets of subterranean rat soldiers. Sure, you can reenact the Ride of the Rohirrim at the Pelennor Fields. Set in Games Workshop’s “Fantasy Battle’’ setting (which existed before the company reset the tabletop lore with the Age of Sigmar universe in 2015), the grand strategy trilogy takes Tolkien’s fantasy archetypes and embellishes them with cartoonish storylines, anime-like clashes, and ridiculous superpowers. That’s probably why I gravitated so strongly to Total War: Warhammer when it was released in 2016, and its sequels in the years since, crescendoing in what I’d call a healthy obsession with Total War: Warhammer 3. And at the time, there was nothing else like it. But for someone obsessed with the martial conflicts detailed in Tolkien’s books, and the way they came to life in the hands of Peter Jackson, The Battle for Middle-earth was breathtaking in its ability to demonstrate how a war fought with dragons, giants, wizards, tree people, and superhuman heroes might unfold. I spent hundreds of hours playing Warcraft 3, Company of Heroes, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 in the years leading up to the first Battle for Middle-earth, and I consider each of them to be more nuanced and better-balanced strategy games. Image: EA Los Angeles/Electronic Arts via SpottinGames/YouTubeīut as a means for marching an army of Gondorian spearmen, Ithilien rangers, and Riders of Rohan to Osgiliath, only to clash with an opposing force of uruks, trolls, and war machines in a pitched real-time battle, in which you defend two bridges over the Anduin river before launching a surprise attack with upgraded cavalry over a third? These games ruled. Combat relied on standard rock-paper-scissors unit weaknesses, factions were grossly imbalanced in multiplayer, and enemy AI repeated the same strategies custom game after custom game, leading to predictable skirmishes for anyone who preferred to avoid online multiplayer. The Battle for Middle-earth isn’t the best strategy series ever made. There’s also a massive Unreal Engine 4 fan mod in the works (although it’s still unclear when, or if, the project will be finished).Įven so - it’s a shame that modern strategy fans can’t simply visit the Origin storefront, GOG.com, or even Game Pass to try out the simple yet compelling clashes between the Men of the West, elves, dwarves, goblins, Mordor, Isengard, and the forces of the Witch King. ![]() Officially speaking, you can purchase pre-owned physical copies of each game on eBay, and play the whole series online via custom servers. The Battle for Middle-earth games aren’t impossible to play in 2023. assumed the mantle of steward for The Lord of the Rings video games, The Battle for Middle-earth series disappeared from digital storefronts, and one of my favorite real-time strategy series vanished into licensing limbo. Tolkien’s fantasy world since 2001, expired as well. What’s more, EA’s licensing deal with New Line Cinema, which had allowed the former to develop games set in J.R.R. 31, 2010, an unfortunate thing happened: Electronic Arts shut down the online servers for The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth, as well as its sequel and the sequel’s expansion. ![]()
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