The Lord of the Rings: War In The North Review – A Darker Middle-earth

The Lord of the Rings: War In The North Review

Lord of the Rings – War In The North – Legacy Edition, even as an acronym: LOTR – WITN – LE, is a mouthful. This resurrection of game developer Snow Blind Studio’s 2011 LOTR game comes to us from Aspyr Media. War In The North, herein referred to as WITN, boils down to a LOTR B Team in concept and execution. This action RPG adventure game takes place in the Northern Region of Middle Earth in parallel to the main storyline.

The game’s frequent introduction of characters such as Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, and Gimli into the narrative, reinforce the B-Team conceit. WITN features three characters: Andriel the Elven Loremaster, Farin the Dwarven Champion, and Eradan the Dunedain Ranger. They respectively represent magic, melee, and ranged attacks. Aragorn tasks them to defend the north while the key battles take place elsewhere.

The trio will battle a servant of Sauron, a Black Numenorean named Agandaur. Agandaur quarters with an immense army in the fallen city of Fornost. Numenoreans hail from the Second Age and lived on the island of Numenor. They aided Elves against Sauron, and the Elves rewarded them with long lifespans and enhanced wisdom.

The Three Hunters

The Legacy Edition of WITN is much less of a remaster and more like a fresh coat of paint. The original 2011 game from Snowblind Studios bears the distinctive look of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era. This version does not change the look of the original beyond upping the resolution and the frame rate from 30 to 60 FPS.

With WITN, you play the game from a third-person perspective. You can play the game in single-player or with two friends in split-screen co-op. Your game experience will depend on how you play it. In single-player mode, the AI of your companions is unchanged and will frustrate you to no end. They will constantly get in your way, often blocking your path. Thankfully, the Legacy Edition has added a hot-swap option so you can jump between the three characters when such situations arise.

Delving a little deeper into the three characters, you choose which one to play at the game’s start. Eradan is the Ranger and uses the following weapons: a bow, a two-handed sword, a sword and shield, or two single-handed weapons. His skill set also includes stealth and tracking. Eradan’s tracking skills let you find hidden stashes of weapons and other items.

The tank of the game is the dwarf Farin. He wields two-handed heavy weapons like axes or a crossbow. He is the game’s melee specialist and can also use single-handed weapons and a shield. Keeping with dwarves’ natural skills as miners, Farin can detect weaknesses in walls which he can smash open to reveal treasures. His opposite is Andriel the elf. She wields a staff or a staff and shield. Andriel’s staff is her long-range weapon. The potions she creates power her offensive and defensive modes. Like her companions, she too can divine hidden items via her ability to find secret passages marked with hidden Elven glyphs.

LOTR – War In The North Single and Co-op Play  

The three characters share several common combat skills. They can all roll, block, and sprint. In single-player mode, you can direct your companions to conduct themselves in either offensive or defensive stances. You can revive fallen companions, but if you fall, it is up to your AI partners to return the favor. If things get hairy in outdoor locations, you can summon a Great Eagle a certain number of times per battle. Eagles can target a single foe for a large amount of damage.

One disparity between single and co-op play has to do with combo power-ups. In co-op, players chain combos together, but in single player, the player’s character restricts the combo power-up. So when the combos hit a needed level, characters enter a ‘hero’ mode. Obviously, three characters in hero mode versus one makes for a big difference.

Beyond levelling up, the game provides two unlockable difficulty modes. You can only play on normal or easy during the first playthrough. Upon completing either difficulty level, a “heroic” mode is unlocked. But there’s even a further level if you complete heroic. Legendary. Thankfully, you keep all your rewards from previous playthroughs.

One of the biggest strengths and hurdles of a Lord of the Rings game is the breadth of the lore Tolkien created for Middle Earth. There is so much lore that it makes it really easy to believe that Middle Earth is real. However, for games like WITN, where the focus is on a specific portion of that lore, it makes it difficult for the game not to get mired down in establishing its context within that fictional world. WITN tackles it via conversations with NPCs.

A Darker, More Mature LOTR Game

The developers depicted a more mature and grittier version of Middle Earth to make the game more attractive to play. So the game ends up with a M for Mature rating. Yet the game had to adhere to the precepts of keeping the heroes as decent, kind people. This made for a difficult balancing act. The restriction on the characters also affects the conversation trees where initial game concepts also included rude responses which had to be taken out.

War In The North sits in a weird position. Both in terms of gameplay and story. Shadow of Mordor, with its Nemesis system, is tough to beat. So the more traditional gameplay mechanics lend to the overall minor league feeling of the game. The parallel lessor storyline coupled with the reminder of the bigger storyline due to the appearances of characters from the main storyline also adds to that vibe.

Hampered by franchise restrictions for both gameplay and story, it makes recommending War In The North difficult for average gamers. It’s not a bad game. It’s just a competent one. In today’s crowded gaming marketplace, where gamers have higher expectations, War In The North is a tough sell. It will appeal to Lord of the Rings fans and those who have some nostalgia attached to the original game.

***PC code provided by publisher for review***