I have a love for The Lord of the Rings but I can't satisfy it. Ever since the Rings of Power made words like Númenor, Harfoots, and Morgoth part of my everyday vernacular, I've been looking for a video game that provides the same cinematic Tolkien action. I had one in particular in mind: EA's excellent real-time strategy game from 2004, Battle for Middle-earth.
I originally had the game on disk, but it's been collecting dust somewhere in my parents' house for the past few years. Even if I could find the box, my PC has long since lost the optical drive needed to run it. "No problem," I thought, "I'll turn to Steam for my Tolkien strategy fix," only to see a disappointingly empty search page appear. Valve's storefront features plenty of Lord of the Rings games, but Battle for Middle-earth isn't one of them.
"Why should it be like this?" I asked myself. "A game as mature as this is much better placed on GOG." My confidence was misplaced. It turned out that even a platform with as promising a name as Good Old Games didn't have the venerable good old game I was looking for. Nor, in this case, any other storefront on the Internet. Search as high or as low as you like, you won't find a pixelated olifant to buy on the retail battlefield.
Not that it's anything new. Battle for Middle-earth and its 2006 sequel were never available for digital purchase. Released after the advent of Steam, but several years before the practice of downloading games took off, the series came just as Gandalf says a wizard shouldn't, a little too soon.
Other real-time strategy games of this era have benefited from better digital preservation. Warcraft 3 was available on Blizzard's Battle.Net client for years (until it was eventually replaced by the 2020 Reforged edition). The Age of Empires series has long been available on Steam in various remaster levels, and a quick look at GOG's strategy section shows Empire Earth, Stronghold, The Settlers, and other mid-2000s hits. they are on sale today.
Warner Bros. seems ready to let RTS float away as abandonware
But the battle for Middle Earth is special. While EA acquired the licensing rights to develop games based on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy in 2001, the license went to Warner Bros. eight years later. Since then, it's up to the big WB to decide if, if anything, EA's older Lord of the Rings games are offered in more accessible storefronts. EA recently showed some interest in re-releasing beloved strategy games from its back catalog, releasing the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection in 2020, but Warner Bros. seems ready to let its Lord of the Rings RTS float around as abandonware.
"I'm sorry to say, but to my knowledge there are no plans to bring back the Battle for Middle-earth titles," an EA community manager told a hopeful fan on the publisher's forums in 2018. "EA already You do not have the license to these titles, so it is not possible to simply publish them.
kinematic scale
Pity. Battle for Middle-earth's epic level strategy had never been seen in any Lord of the Rings game before and certainly hasn't been replicated since. With four factions to choose from: Rohan, Gondor, Isengard, and Mordor, each equipped with distinct battalions of infantry, cavalry, ranged, and hero units, this is an RTS that brilliantly recreates the cinematic bombshell of the beloved film trilogy.
All the usual real-time strategy tropes of the era are there. You'll build a small settlement to generate resources, build military buildings to recruit offensive units, and seize outposts as you advance towards the enemy on the other side of the map. Each unit can be upgraded with stat upgrades and completed bonus objectives for additional benefits. Eventually, you'll need to muster an offense strong enough to deliver the killing blow, decimating your opponent and burning their camp to ashes.
Hints of Age of Mythology shines through its character-driven campaigns. Divided between the Free Peoples and the Dark Forces, they follow the plot of the novels before forging an alternate history of Middle-earth, as they conquer the lands of Men with orcs and Uruk-Hai after defeating Theoden in the Battle of the Abyss. of Helm. .
Hints of Age of Mythology shines through its character-based campaigns
Gandalf, Frodo, Aragorn, and the rest of the Fellowship appear as powerful hero units, alongside their dark counterparts: Saruman, Balrog, Lurtz, and more. Each feels powerful, but also allows the game to stray from traditional real-time strategy territory. Its first level is more like a game of real-time tactics as you lead the Fellowship through the Mines of Moria, coordinating each character's special abilities to defeat goblins, trolls, and eventually the mine's resident Balrog.
The sequel only went one step further, introducing dwarves, elves, and goblins as playable factions, as well as chaotically massive eight-player multiplayer skirmishes. It achieved a scale of war that might feel a bit clunky and cramped compared to current world Total War: Warhammer 3, but it seemed to suit its source material at the time.
A light in dark places
You don't have to look too far online to find less than legitimate ways to download Battle for Middle-earth. But abandonware never lasts. A game's legacy is all but established when it emerges from the glowing search results of the official stores. How do new players who didn't pick up the game when it launched find out? Explore the depths of Reddit; read stories lamenting their unavailability online? Not likely. The game will inevitably be lost sight of by strategy enthusiasts as they won't be aware of its existence and won't see what they're missing.
Surprisingly, it's not the only Lord of the Rings strategy game to fall behind. War of the Ring, a Warcraft-style RTS from 2003 that never had the same level of success, is also not available for legal purchase. But the battle for defection from Middle-earth hits harder. EA's beloved RTS is truly the best strategy game based on Tolkien's work. Few video games have been able to match its fantastic sense of scale. Hopefully even fewer will end up being left out of the biggest gaming platforms.