Aspyr has unexpectedly remastered and re-released an old Lord of the Rings action role-playing game, which was notable for having three-player co-op and parallel story about one of Sauron’s powerful servants doing naughty things up north.
That game is The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, and the Legacy edition, as the new remaster is known, is available today on PC (Steam, Epic Game Store, GOG), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. It’ll be available slightly later on Switch and Switch 2, from 18th August. The game costs around £19.
Perhaps more intriguingly, Warner Bros. teased that this is only “the first” The Lord of the Rings game re-release coming from Aspyr. “Fans can look forward to even more classic releases by Aspyr from the beloved franchise in the future!” a press release said.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, released originally in 2011, was developed by Snowblind Studios, a team famed for co-developing Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, another co-op RPG. Snowblind was merged with Monolith in 2012 and went on to help make the acclaimed Lord of the Rings games Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, so there’s pedigree here.
Sadly, we didn’t think much of War in the North when it was originally released, with contributor Jeffrey Matulef admonishing it with 4/10 in his Lord of the Rings: War in the North Review. He labelled the game a “soulless cash-in” that “turns visiting one of Western civilisation’s most revered fictional settings into a chore”.
But don’t let that put you off! The Legacy edition – this new edition – comes with 60 FPS support, the ability to hot-swap between characters, split-screen (not available on Switch 1, ditto 60 FPS), better target-locking, an improved UI/UX, an autosave feature, gyro control support, and lots of bug fixes. In other words, plenty of polishing has been done.
The game itself has you take a Golden Axe-like trio of fighters into the north of Middle-earth – a tanky dwarf, an elven mage, and a Dúnadan ranger – and fight your way through hordes of enemies in the name of saving the day. And also in the name of levelling up and getting new powers and lots of loot, as was the real goal of the Fellowship.
Aragorn and pals are here in cameo roles, and you’ll adventure through well-known locations like Mirkwood and Rivendell. Think of it a bit as a prototype for Shadow of Mordor, albeit without the famed Nemesis system.
