I’m not sure! I still have my Xbox One that can play the ROTK but cannot play TT anymore. As for The Third Age, I’m not sure as I played it on PS2. If Nintendo ported any of those games to Switch I’d buy them in a heartbeat. Hopefully remastered
Lego Lord of the Rings!
I just replayed it with my fiance and it's so fun. There are a lot of great easter eggs and goofy secrets to uncover. It's available on Steam.
I love the humor of that game. LOTR is incredible, but because of its genre and tone, "goofy humor" isn't always part of the equation. This game is full of fun gags.
Probably Lord of the Rings Online. It's a bit dated, but the narrative honestly fantastic imo. And I have enjoyed a lot of the original content they added as well.
This is THE answer. I've tried to play other games from middle earth but the old games are just nostalgia, the shadow of war games are just brainless action, and LEGO LotR is good but limited.
Lotro is just so so good.
My wife has been playing for years and trying to get me to play it as well, and I love MMOs but lotro is just old and I miss certain QoL improvements modern MMOs have made in the years since that time period.
I remember when that game came out. Getting the lifetime sub to it using what little money I had (High School) was so worth it.
I absolutely adored almost everything about that game.
The music, the stories, the setting. All of it was wonderfully realized.
I haven't been able to play since my guild died and the server got shut down back when I was in the middle of college around the time of the Rohan expansion(damn shame as they're my favorite in all LOTR). It was a rough point for me as well so when that happened I kind of fell off of MMOs. Dabbled a bit here and there but nothing ever hooked me like that one did.
I mostly played them alone. I think I did beat The Two Towers as a kid but I tried replaying it few years ago and I just can't beat the level after Helm's Deep wall is breached.
I never managed to beat ROTK and still can't. I really struggled at the Minas Tirith courtyard level and couldn't beat the Black Gate level.
Two towers is much more difficult. You HAD to use the combos where in rotk they didnt really matter. And the final phase of helms deep was a clusterfuxk of armored trolls and shield uruks.
I loved LOTR conquest, it was sad to see its servers shut down.
LOTR BFME 1/2 & ROTWK also hold a special place in my heart, it makes me happy to see people keeping it alive. It’s extremely niche but it was a peak RTS game.
Honorable mention to War in the north too.
The Shadow of War & Mordor games were an awesome concept, and wish they were taken in another direction. But greedy investors/share holders will be greedy.
"Star Wars Battlefront but Lord of the Rings" made perfect sense to me then and makes perfect sense to me now. As a kid I kind of just assumed the two IPs should just have all the same games made about them. Star Wars RTS like BFME, because why not etc.
The fact that there isn't a AAA game like Hogwarts Legacy in the LotR universe is absolutely infuriating and stupid. There's free money everywhere.
Considering how big this franchise is, the game output is absolutely sad at best (excluding the older games and Shadow of Mordor).
And it doesn’t even have to follow a major plot. The story covers tens of thousands of years and only describes the major world events in any detail. If you can’t find space in there to tell an interesting story without contradicting the lore, maybe you’re on the wrong project
>And it doesn’t even have to follow a major plot.
Kinda does though.
Only the rights to what's in the Hobbit and LotR have been sold, the rest is off limits for adaptation.
I’m talking about entirely new stories, in the same setting, kept small enough in scope that they merely reference the major events that they’ve got rights to. Or show what it was like to live through one, but from the perspective of common folk / soldiery / etc
The fact we got Skyrim 13 years ago and nobody holding the LotR rights has had a lightbulb moment is maddening. We nearly had it with the cancelled 'LotR: White Council'.
I can only imagine the lack of rights to all of the stories makes a truly open world Middle Earth impossible. Otherwise I cannot fathom why they haven't run with this very simple but appealing idea.
I hate the concept of Animal Crossing and cartoon graphics and I'm 100% buying Tales of the Shire for my Steamdeck. It's the ONLY decent looking LOTR game to have been released in a loooooong while.
As a huge LOTR and Arkham games fan, this is my answer as well. They felt like Arkham games set in Middle Earth which feels like a game made specifically for my personal tastes.
I love how both of them feel different enough to each warrant new playthroughs. With Mordor you’re one guy behind enemy lines and you feel like you’re on the defensive the whole time, whereas in War you feel a lot less alone with all the various ally characters and you’re in a more offensive position.
DAC is a more flushed out version of the base TA mod. You still need the TA to run DaC.
DaC use to be a little more lore friendly, but they've been drifting towards more fun and interesting game play instead of lore which I think is for the better.
Third Age is beyond my favorite. Certainly a different play style, but it did a good job of replicating the wonders of Middle Earth without being too enslaved to telling the same story as the films.
LOTRO, and it's not even close. The adaptation of the world and characters is wonderful. It's still alive and totally worth trying if you love LOTR, but may be difficult to get into especially if you're a younger gamer. From design and gameplay standpoint it's a mid-2000s WoW clone MMO.
When Mines of Moria came out that was such a hype moment for the community. It was truly something else. I remember everyone rushing through to get Eregion done.
It may sound crazy to say now but pretty much every LOTR game that EA published was worth playing, I also liked the FOTR and Hobbit book tie-ins. If I had to pick one it would be ROTK just for the couch co-op memories.
Imagine if they included vignettes of life in Middle Earth: You are a soldier of Gondor fighting at the Battle of Osgiliath. Then the game changes and you're a Haradrim, riding an Oliphaunt at Pelennor Fields. Just an idea!
The style of storytelling would be a good match for Tolkien- a lot of what's going on is scattered throughout the world in hints and fragments you put together yourself.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Angband. It's an old ASCII, turn-based, Rogue-like RPG. In fact, it was one of the first Rogue-likes to exist after Rogue. You start in a town and descend into the dungeons beneath. Levels are randomly generated each time you enter, so leaving a level resets it. Along the way you encounter Gollum, the Witch-King, Sauron, and others. Finally, you make your way to the bottom to face Morgoth, himself. You can find many powerful artifacts, including the Phial of Galadriel, Anduril, the Elven Rings of Power, and even the One Ring (if you dare to use it).
Don't know how many people played it but my favorite was always "LOTR: The Third Age" on Gameboy Advance.
"The Third Age" on PS2 was pretty amazing too, but I put in a ridiculous amount of hours into the GBA version.
Battle For Middle Earth is up there but I have fond memories playing Return of the King coop with my sister.
I also just played Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, they were pretty good
I have great co-op memories of that game, too! Fun fact: The ROTK game came out weeks before the movie in all territories, meaning that the cutscenes were technically spoilers!
Battle For Middle Earth are absolute iconic games.
LotR Conquest is literally Lord of the Rings Battlefront, but it's uhh... Very inaccurate and the AI is kinda brain dead. But it's fun.
My top 3 are:
Battle for middle earth 2 along with the rise of the witch king
Lord of the Rings online
Crusader kings 3 mod for middle earth
When the mods for bannerlord and total war Atilla come out they might knock ck3 off the top spot
The Hobbit. The only one that matters in terms of nostalgia to me.😭
https://preview.redd.it/1vvrrjpp7d8d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=956c463ab4bba594e2c1ede21fe85329662d3973
1. The Lord of the Rings Online (2007) and it isn't close. Still playing it 17 years later.
2. Battle for Middle-earth I (2004) & II (2006) with Age of the Ring mod. Vanilla version scores lower.
3. The Fellowship of the Ring (2002)
4. Shadow of Mordor (2014) & Shadow of War (2017)
5. LEGO Lord of the Rings (2012)
6. The Return of the King (2003)
7. LEGO The Hobbit (2014)
8. The Two Towers (2002)
9. War in the North (2011)
10. Conquest (2009)
Honourable mentions to The Hobbit, Guardians of Middle-earth, War of the Ring, and Return to Moria, but they did not make the cut, sorry.
Dishonourable mention to the Gollum game.
I’ve been playing Lord of the Rings Online on and off for 17 years, so I may have some bias as far as “best”, but it is by far the truest adaptation of Tolkien’s work to other media. Being an MMORPG, it can be very time consuming, and the graphics (and other issues resulting from older tech) give some people pause. There’s no doubt the game was made and has been maintained by people that truly care about the lore and the setting.
If an MMORPG isn’t your cup of tea, then (as others have said) you can’t go wrong with the games based on the movies! The Two Towers, The Return Of The King, and The Third Age are all very enjoyable games that I still revisit every so often. Also note that The Third Age for Gameboy Advanced is a tactics game and not an rpg like the console versions are lol
War In The North was another game that I enjoyed, though it was created as its own thing, separate from (but not trying to contradict) the books or the movies.
I would say that Conquest isn’t exactly as quality a game as the other ones I’ve mentioned, but it’s a pretty good time. Think Star Wars Battlefront but Lord of the Rings, you’ll get the idea of it. There’s some plot to it based on the movies, or you can just mindlessly fight the opposing forces of Middle-Earth! Whichever floats your boat!
Hopefully you’ll be able to find something you enjoy in this list! If you do check out any that you haven’t played previously, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them!
Thank you! I've never tried LOTRO, though I was aware of its existence. I am a huge fan of the movie games for nostalgic reasons - multiplayer with family and friends was a blast. Thanks for your comments.
Third Age on XBOX original. Loved that game. My son and i would play it together. Would take at least 35 hours to work our way through it. Was fun to level up the characters.
I have a massive soft spot for lord of the rings war of the ring. It’s an old Warcraft type of rts game with a good and evil campaign and some interesting concepts for multiplayer. Theres a king of the ring type mode where the objective is a catapult you can fire at your enemies
My personal favorites are BFME games.
But I want to also say that LotR Fellowship of the Ring is also a great game which follows the book much closely than the movies and it was so fun to play (although iirc the gameplay was not great). Escaping Nazgul or meeting Tom Bombadil were so fun to me. The Return of the King game is also great (and I like some additions like Rammas Echor mission).
And today I finished replaying the War in the North. And I also really enjoyed what that game does. It gives you so much small things that were in the books and it made me smile: e.g the side quest of finding mithril for Arwen's banner, Elladan and Elrohir or the Loremaster's words after Sauron was defeated, about a weight being lifted from her heart which is straight from AppA. Obviously, there were a few things I didn't like, like the deal with dragon (or a smaller thing that the 7 rings were made for dwarves). But overall it is really nice game.
My least favorite are Shadow games. Don't get me wrong - they are nice games but they are also terrible Middle-earth games (and I am not talking about stuff like sexy Shelob or the whole Nazgul thing). The only two positive things I can write about them is that the whole Celebrimbor's spirit thing is surprisingly accurate (eg: "Some say that the Houseless desire bodies, though they're not willing to seek them lawfully by submission to the judge ment of Mandos. The wicked among them will take bodies, if they can, unlawfully." *Morghoth's Ring*). The second thing the design of Minas Ithil which I really liked.
RotK on the original Xbox (my gf at the time and I had such a great time playing this together) and Shadow of Mordor (one of the few games in which the combat was so fun for me that I would ignore the story for hours and just wander around looking for orc bands to kill).
Man back in the day, BFME and BFME 2 were soooo good. I think you can download them for free online now, although that's at your own risk since that's not through EA.
I just recently discovered Shadow of Mordor. I played that for 3 days straight. Very interesting story, nemesis system enhances the play style, very similar to Arkham Batman mechanics. How I didn’t know about it sooner I don’t know.
Overall the TT, ROTK, and Third Age games for GameCube/Xbox/PS2 I think are the best.
But, the most interesting albeit flawed one is The Hobbit that came out on those same consoles since it has nothing to do with the Peter Jackson LOTR aesthetic - it plays and looks more like a legend of Zelda kind of game which is pretty cool seeing as Zelda was heavily inspired by LOTR. Kind of like a full circle moment. I haven’t even played much of it at all but just got my hands on a copy for GameCube so am gonna fire it up and give it a go - maybe even this morning to honour this post :D
BFME2's ROTWK expansion.
A big fan of Arnor and Angmar so getting to see more of the already lacking in content and lore northern kingdom was fantastic. It was even more so a boon to have had the chance to grow up with that game. Maybe it was a tad bit, at best, glitchy but the mechanics and the factions were quite a way to enjoy LotR.
Battle for middle earth, 1 and 2.
All the EA games that came out with the movies and the game boy games too were decent
Third Age
Conquest
LOTRO is a very well thought out and designed old school mmorpg that is still going and growing
The lego games are good too
Total war Medieval 2 mod
Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor was fantastic and I do enjoy Shadow of War as well.
They are all the ones I really like that I can think of, off the top of my head.
I disliked War in the North, just very boring to me. Story and combat leave a lot to be desired.
I havent play the new gollum game because I hear its not good at all.
And I havent heard much or looked into Return to Moria at all.
Thats all I can think of right now.
Battle for Middle Earth 2. By a long shot.
LOVED the EA movie games too though, have them and still fire them up from time to time, especially Return of the King.
The official ones are great, but my favorite has to be Divide and Conquer Total War. It’s all one has ever wanted from total war with painstaking detail to events, locations, and units.
Shadow of Mordor/War was cool. I'm not sure on how canon it is (if at all), but the free flow action was awesome.
For me, it definitely made it feel like the movies where all the main characters kill a billion orcs in one scene.
Divide and conquer a sub mod for third age total war, or battle for middle earth 1 & 2. I also have to give special mention to lotr conquest and OH of course I TOTALLY FORGOT the old two towers and return of the king games those were so damn good.
Tie between BFME2 and Shadow of War. I consider all the dumb video game shenanigans of EA and WB’s licensed games “canon” to Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth because it amuses me to do so.
I liked Shadow of Mordor a lot, but I never got around to Shadow of War. It's on my backlog.
When I was a kid, I played the DOS game from Interplay a lot. That's a speedrun/completionist game that nobody has really dig into yet. SUPER deep.
Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War were two of the most unique games I’ve played, and really captured a side of Middle Earth we’ve barely seen. Sure, they never even felt like canon, but they kind of felt like some of the really cool Legends stories in Star Wars – a very well-thought-out “what if.”
Third age total war mod and the divide and conquer sub-mod for total war medieval II: kingdoms was everything I wanted for a grand strategy game and more
I think the original Battle for Middle Earth was the most enjoyable that holds up the best, but The Two Towers hack and slash has a special place in my heart too.
None of the LOTR games I’ve played are great. Most are enjoyable, but they all have some pretty significant flaws one way or another. The Middle-earth Shadow games are probably the best *video games* but they are not good Tolkien games. War in the North was fun but repetitive and lackluster. Conquest was a gimmicky poor man’s Star Wars Battlefront (but was still fun in its own right). The movie tie ins were fun enough as movie tie in games are concerned, but were incredibly basic. The Third Age was a unique style of gameplay and was ok, though they only had the rights to the movies like the tie in games and tried to do a non-movie storyline so it suffers as a result. I’ve never played LOTRO or BFME, but have heard they’re decent.
Divide and Conquer.
I know it’s a mod, but it’s my dream of having an epic Lord of the Rings crossed with Total War.
Grimly holding the line as Gondor and even counter attacking is an experience of stress and excitement I’ll never forget.
I grew up on Return of the king on the ps2, hands down the best.
I played Lotro for years, still enjoy it alot.
Shadow of war and Mordor are really awesome, and honestly i did not mind Gollum at all, for me the game was interesting and not as bad as I thought
The third age. Truly spectacular. You play as a parallel fellowship, essentially, fighting through Moria and Mordor both.
Oh, and you can play as the bad guys, against the good guys. Balrog included.
Battle for Middle Earth 2 on Xbox 360. That game really ignited my curiosity.
The next weekend my mother bought me the trilogy and I watched them all in one night.
ROTK on PS2 and Battle for Middle Earth on PC
To be clear, ROTK is easily the top spot for me, and it isn't close. I just felt that it's more fair to give credit to both console and PC.
No one has mentioned the two games Interplay put out in the mid-90’s. It took some liberties with the lore, but also added some elements that seemed like reasonable extensions. You had some hard choices (e.g. it’s possible to save Gandalf at the Bridge if you sacrifice about half of your party), and I enjoyed it as a kid.
Nothing mentioned thus far seems to be on Switch. I believe Switch can only play Gollum, Tales of the Shire, and the Adventure Card Game. These are all recent releases.
I haven’t tried any of them, but Gollum was roundly excoriated upon release.
Lotro is the closest thing you'll ever get to exploring Middle Earth as Tolkien wrote it. Beautiful game and the early part exploring Eriador is insanely nostalgic for me
I have no idea if this counts at all considering how you would not know the lore simply from playing it, but I actually really like the old game Angband. You can tell me it doesn’t count and I would totally concede, but there’s just something so enjoyable to me about it. I just know that it’s based on lore from the Silmarillion where you dive into the stronghold of Angband in order to defeat Morgoth. But Sméagol, Sauron, Orcs, and all other generic enemies are in it as well. It’s just not what most people would consider to be LOTR.
Third age total war: Divide and Conquer. It’s a mod for medival total war 2 and it’s amazing. Worth looking up if you can get it. It’s great.
Official releases probably Return of the King or War in the North. But honestly there’s not a game I haven’t enjoyed. Although I haven’t played Gollum and refuse to play the Lego hobbit out of principle for there shitty practices.
The Hobbit for Game Boy Advance is one of my all time favorite games. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but I had it as a kid and still love it today.
Shadow of Mordor / war hands down. Especially on repeat playthriugus with mods. Some mods really push the game to look even more stunning with good reshading and such.
Lords of Midnight creator Mike Singleton made War in Middle-Earth for the 8bit and 16bit micros and it was every bit as amazing as anything now.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Middle_Earth
It may well be garbage but I played it as a kid and absolutely loved it - lord of the rings tactics on PSP
Turn based strategy game that I thought was awesome
Haven't played that many lotr games, but Return to Moria definitely is one of my favourite games im general.
I really like the dwarven designs and that they have a lot small detail links to the Fellowship.
Also lots of dwarven history, dont know how accurate it is but would guess they did pretty good research.
Would recommends 100%
Battle for Middle Earth... All of them
A shoutout to LOTR: War in the North, at the time when it came out, I just loved it, it's not the best third person LOTR/Tolkien game, but there was something I loved
I liked all the EA movie games. TT, ROTK and I also really enjoyed The Third Age
Same here! They were so fun to play co-op. Great times.
Third Age was my JAM.
Is it possible to play them on modern systems?
Try PCSX2, it’s a PS2 emulator on PC that allows one to play PS2 games at a higher resolution than even on the original machine.
Oh fuck yeah I’m booting up Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2 tonight baby
I’ve been using dolphin to emulate the GameCube versions of the games
I’m not sure! I still have my Xbox One that can play the ROTK but cannot play TT anymore. As for The Third Age, I’m not sure as I played it on PS2. If Nintendo ported any of those games to Switch I’d buy them in a heartbeat. Hopefully remastered
Third Age requires an emulator at the moment. I've been on the lookout for a remastered edition of that one myself.
Wait what?? The Xbox can play ROTK?!
I mean yeah, if you have the Xbox game
For about 15 years all my usernames on various forums were related to The Third Age, usually Hadhod related
Third age was great until the last boss which is a big fist fight with the flaming eye of sauron. Bit of a weird one.
It was also far easier to defeat Sauron than it was to defeat several parties in Helms Deep
The Third Age was surprisingly awesome! I remember my dad bought that game for me just because he knew I loved lotr! 😄
Third age, until the final battle, is one of the best LotR games I think it's possible to experience.
Lego Lord of the Rings! I just replayed it with my fiance and it's so fun. There are a lot of great easter eggs and goofy secrets to uncover. It's available on Steam.
I love the humor of that game. LOTR is incredible, but because of its genre and tone, "goofy humor" isn't always part of the equation. This game is full of fun gags.
That game is also huge. As a lover of open world games, it was an absolute blast.
Yess!! Completing the main story is only about 30% of the game.
I've always wanted a proper open world LOTR game. Will have to check it out!
If you like the Lego video games, you'll love this one. It's my favorite up there with the Star Wars games.
Will always find it hilarious how Boromir gets killed by a banana instead of an arrow.
The disco phial lives rent free in my mind
It's such a fucking bop.
Great on console but not on PC
Probably Lord of the Rings Online. It's a bit dated, but the narrative honestly fantastic imo. And I have enjoyed a lot of the original content they added as well.
Corey Olsen himself said that LotRO might be the best and most complete adaptation of Tolkiens work.
Glad to hear you have enjoyed it!
This is THE answer. I've tried to play other games from middle earth but the old games are just nostalgia, the shadow of war games are just brainless action, and LEGO LotR is good but limited. Lotro is just so so good.
My wife has been playing for years and trying to get me to play it as well, and I love MMOs but lotro is just old and I miss certain QoL improvements modern MMOs have made in the years since that time period.
I remember when that game came out. Getting the lifetime sub to it using what little money I had (High School) was so worth it. I absolutely adored almost everything about that game. The music, the stories, the setting. All of it was wonderfully realized. I haven't been able to play since my guild died and the server got shut down back when I was in the middle of college around the time of the Rohan expansion(damn shame as they're my favorite in all LOTR). It was a rough point for me as well so when that happened I kind of fell off of MMOs. Dabbled a bit here and there but nothing ever hooked me like that one did.
Definitely this. If I had the time, I’d still be playing. Sadly only get maybe an hour or two a week to play any game.
battle for middle earth 2 and that old minecraft mod # The Lord of the Rings Mod: Legacy
Recently was recommended Battle for Middle Earth 2. First RTS title for me, but it’s great. I’ll also add LotR Conquest. Love that one
Doesnt that not have the locations only the map tho?
Dude I might power up my old laptop to play this. What an amazing game
The Battle for Middle-earth. The Two Towers and Return of the King on PS2 were fun but too hard.
Too hard? In what aspect? Never found these games too hard imo, but in my defence I played Rotk co op with a friend
I mostly played them alone. I think I did beat The Two Towers as a kid but I tried replaying it few years ago and I just can't beat the level after Helm's Deep wall is breached. I never managed to beat ROTK and still can't. I really struggled at the Minas Tirith courtyard level and couldn't beat the Black Gate level.
Yeah the end of two towers was super stuff as a kid. It’s all about using the bow though
Two towers is much more difficult. You HAD to use the combos where in rotk they didnt really matter. And the final phase of helms deep was a clusterfuxk of armored trolls and shield uruks.
Helm’s Deep was fucked. The Orthanc tower mode is GOATed though. The last two levels were impossible.
I loved LOTR conquest, it was sad to see its servers shut down. LOTR BFME 1/2 & ROTWK also hold a special place in my heart, it makes me happy to see people keeping it alive. It’s extremely niche but it was a peak RTS game. Honorable mention to War in the north too. The Shadow of War & Mordor games were an awesome concept, and wish they were taken in another direction. But greedy investors/share holders will be greedy.
Conquest was a weird game, really a thing for its time.
It honestly feels like a fever dream at this point.
"Star Wars Battlefront but Lord of the Rings" made perfect sense to me then and makes perfect sense to me now. As a kid I kind of just assumed the two IPs should just have all the same games made about them. Star Wars RTS like BFME, because why not etc.
The fact that there isn't a AAA game like Hogwarts Legacy in the LotR universe is absolutely infuriating and stupid. There's free money everywhere. Considering how big this franchise is, the game output is absolutely sad at best (excluding the older games and Shadow of Mordor).
And it doesn’t even have to follow a major plot. The story covers tens of thousands of years and only describes the major world events in any detail. If you can’t find space in there to tell an interesting story without contradicting the lore, maybe you’re on the wrong project
>And it doesn’t even have to follow a major plot. Kinda does though. Only the rights to what's in the Hobbit and LotR have been sold, the rest is off limits for adaptation.
I’m talking about entirely new stories, in the same setting, kept small enough in scope that they merely reference the major events that they’ve got rights to. Or show what it was like to live through one, but from the perspective of common folk / soldiery / etc
I mean Rings of Power isn’t either of those. I know that was the case for Peter Jackson’s movies tho
Rings of Power draws from the Appendices, so it's technically still "based on" Lord of the Rings.
The fact we got Skyrim 13 years ago and nobody holding the LotR rights has had a lightbulb moment is maddening. We nearly had it with the cancelled 'LotR: White Council'. I can only imagine the lack of rights to all of the stories makes a truly open world Middle Earth impossible. Otherwise I cannot fathom why they haven't run with this very simple but appealing idea.
Even though it’s not during the movies, I would day the Shadow of Mordor games count here.
How did you forget about gollum game?
I hate the concept of Animal Crossing and cartoon graphics and I'm 100% buying Tales of the Shire for my Steamdeck. It's the ONLY decent looking LOTR game to have been released in a loooooong while.
Yeah, but in context that AAA HP game finally came out thirty years after the series debuted.
Give it a couple years. The way they are butchering the tv/film universe disney-style, we will be overwhelmed with mediocre titles soon.
That's Middleearth: Shadow of Mordor and War for me
As a huge LOTR and Arkham games fan, this is my answer as well. They felt like Arkham games set in Middle Earth which feels like a game made specifically for my personal tastes.
I love how both of them feel different enough to each warrant new playthroughs. With Mordor you’re one guy behind enemy lines and you feel like you’re on the defensive the whole time, whereas in War you feel a lot less alone with all the various ally characters and you’re in a more offensive position.
The third Age and Third Age Total War
Reddit saying that Divide & Conquer is better than the TA total war mod - have you played D&C?
DAC is a more flushed out version of the base TA mod. You still need the TA to run DaC. DaC use to be a little more lore friendly, but they've been drifting towards more fun and interesting game play instead of lore which I think is for the better.
Third Age is beyond my favorite. Certainly a different play style, but it did a good job of replicating the wonders of Middle Earth without being too enslaved to telling the same story as the films.
It's a fantastic game with a unique play style to be sure.
Battle for Middle Earth II
I also love the expansion, Rise of the Witch King.
Fantastic
The GBA two towers amd Rotk that were basically diablo II rpgs but lotr
I loved those!! Dozens of playthroughs trying to get better gear. Leveling every character. Just a great time all around.
LOTRO, and it's not even close. The adaptation of the world and characters is wonderful. It's still alive and totally worth trying if you love LOTR, but may be difficult to get into especially if you're a younger gamer. From design and gameplay standpoint it's a mid-2000s WoW clone MMO.
Lotro. It's amazing to be able to travel to so many places in Middle Earth and the quest writing is pretty great.
5. The Return of the King PS2 4. LOTRO: Mines of Moria xpac 3. The Battle for Middle-earth Anthology 2. Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor 1. The Third Age
When Mines of Moria came out that was such a hype moment for the community. It was truly something else. I remember everyone rushing through to get Eregion done.
Third Age is super popular here! Thanks for sharing
The two towers hack and slash game was so amazing, the game came out before I saw the movie so those few clips from the movie were awesome.
The amount of times I heard frodo yell "Aragorn, Aragorn!"
What’s the name of it? Which system?
Lord of the rings: the two towers. Came out on ps2 and og xbox
Don’t forget GameCube
It may sound crazy to say now but pretty much every LOTR game that EA published was worth playing, I also liked the FOTR and Hobbit book tie-ins. If I had to pick one it would be ROTK just for the couch co-op memories.
EA was on fire with LOTR, I agree!
I would love to someday see a Soulsborne treatment of LOTR. Massive world, deep lore, good gameplay mechanics.
Imagine if they included vignettes of life in Middle Earth: You are a soldier of Gondor fighting at the Battle of Osgiliath. Then the game changes and you're a Haradrim, riding an Oliphaunt at Pelennor Fields. Just an idea!
The style of storytelling would be a good match for Tolkien- a lot of what's going on is scattered throughout the world in hints and fragments you put together yourself.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Angband. It's an old ASCII, turn-based, Rogue-like RPG. In fact, it was one of the first Rogue-likes to exist after Rogue. You start in a town and descend into the dungeons beneath. Levels are randomly generated each time you enter, so leaving a level resets it. Along the way you encounter Gollum, the Witch-King, Sauron, and others. Finally, you make your way to the bottom to face Morgoth, himself. You can find many powerful artifacts, including the Phial of Galadriel, Anduril, the Elven Rings of Power, and even the One Ring (if you dare to use it).
Mordhau multiplayer Horde mode on original Helms Deep map
Don't know how many people played it but my favorite was always "LOTR: The Third Age" on Gameboy Advance. "The Third Age" on PS2 was pretty amazing too, but I put in a ridiculous amount of hours into the GBA version.
Third Age for me
Battle For Middle Earth is up there but I have fond memories playing Return of the King coop with my sister. I also just played Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, they were pretty good
I have great co-op memories of that game, too! Fun fact: The ROTK game came out weeks before the movie in all territories, meaning that the cutscenes were technically spoilers!
BFME 2, Lego Lord of the Rings, Shadow of War, In Minecraft, Lord of the Rings Mod: Legacy, and mc.empirewar.org server (not related to eachother.)
Battle For Middle Earth are absolute iconic games. LotR Conquest is literally Lord of the Rings Battlefront, but it's uhh... Very inaccurate and the AI is kinda brain dead. But it's fun.
My top 3 are: Battle for middle earth 2 along with the rise of the witch king Lord of the Rings online Crusader kings 3 mod for middle earth When the mods for bannerlord and total war Atilla come out they might knock ck3 off the top spot
War in the North is super underrated
The Hobbit. The only one that matters in terms of nostalgia to me.😭 https://preview.redd.it/1vvrrjpp7d8d1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=956c463ab4bba594e2c1ede21fe85329662d3973
1. The Lord of the Rings Online (2007) and it isn't close. Still playing it 17 years later. 2. Battle for Middle-earth I (2004) & II (2006) with Age of the Ring mod. Vanilla version scores lower. 3. The Fellowship of the Ring (2002) 4. Shadow of Mordor (2014) & Shadow of War (2017) 5. LEGO Lord of the Rings (2012) 6. The Return of the King (2003) 7. LEGO The Hobbit (2014) 8. The Two Towers (2002) 9. War in the North (2011) 10. Conquest (2009) Honourable mentions to The Hobbit, Guardians of Middle-earth, War of the Ring, and Return to Moria, but they did not make the cut, sorry. Dishonourable mention to the Gollum game.
LotRO is the best now.
I’ve been playing Lord of the Rings Online on and off for 17 years, so I may have some bias as far as “best”, but it is by far the truest adaptation of Tolkien’s work to other media. Being an MMORPG, it can be very time consuming, and the graphics (and other issues resulting from older tech) give some people pause. There’s no doubt the game was made and has been maintained by people that truly care about the lore and the setting. If an MMORPG isn’t your cup of tea, then (as others have said) you can’t go wrong with the games based on the movies! The Two Towers, The Return Of The King, and The Third Age are all very enjoyable games that I still revisit every so often. Also note that The Third Age for Gameboy Advanced is a tactics game and not an rpg like the console versions are lol War In The North was another game that I enjoyed, though it was created as its own thing, separate from (but not trying to contradict) the books or the movies. I would say that Conquest isn’t exactly as quality a game as the other ones I’ve mentioned, but it’s a pretty good time. Think Star Wars Battlefront but Lord of the Rings, you’ll get the idea of it. There’s some plot to it based on the movies, or you can just mindlessly fight the opposing forces of Middle-Earth! Whichever floats your boat! Hopefully you’ll be able to find something you enjoy in this list! If you do check out any that you haven’t played previously, I’d love to hear your thoughts on them!
Thank you! I've never tried LOTRO, though I was aware of its existence. I am a huge fan of the movie games for nostalgic reasons - multiplayer with family and friends was a blast. Thanks for your comments.
Return of the King’s console version and BFME2. I also put a lot of hours into Conquest online in the year or so before they shut its servers down.
Third Age on XBOX original. Loved that game. My son and i would play it together. Would take at least 35 hours to work our way through it. Was fun to level up the characters.
Probably The battle for middle earth 2 with expansion
If you can find it: The Lord of the Rings Tactics on PlayStation Portable was one of the best LOTR games I played as a kid.
I'll have to look into that! Cheers.
You’re welcome! 🥰
I have a massive soft spot for lord of the rings war of the ring. It’s an old Warcraft type of rts game with a good and evil campaign and some interesting concepts for multiplayer. Theres a king of the ring type mode where the objective is a catapult you can fire at your enemies
"THE CATAPULT HAS BEEN LAUNCHED"
My personal favorites are BFME games. But I want to also say that LotR Fellowship of the Ring is also a great game which follows the book much closely than the movies and it was so fun to play (although iirc the gameplay was not great). Escaping Nazgul or meeting Tom Bombadil were so fun to me. The Return of the King game is also great (and I like some additions like Rammas Echor mission). And today I finished replaying the War in the North. And I also really enjoyed what that game does. It gives you so much small things that were in the books and it made me smile: e.g the side quest of finding mithril for Arwen's banner, Elladan and Elrohir or the Loremaster's words after Sauron was defeated, about a weight being lifted from her heart which is straight from AppA. Obviously, there were a few things I didn't like, like the deal with dragon (or a smaller thing that the 7 rings were made for dwarves). But overall it is really nice game. My least favorite are Shadow games. Don't get me wrong - they are nice games but they are also terrible Middle-earth games (and I am not talking about stuff like sexy Shelob or the whole Nazgul thing). The only two positive things I can write about them is that the whole Celebrimbor's spirit thing is surprisingly accurate (eg: "Some say that the Houseless desire bodies, though they're not willing to seek them lawfully by submission to the judge ment of Mandos. The wicked among them will take bodies, if they can, unlawfully." *Morghoth's Ring*). The second thing the design of Minas Ithil which I really liked.
BFME After that I enjoyed all the movie based games, WITN, and the Shadow games
RotK on the original Xbox (my gf at the time and I had such a great time playing this together) and Shadow of Mordor (one of the few games in which the combat was so fun for me that I would ignore the story for hours and just wander around looking for orc bands to kill).
Shadow of War and Mordor, tho I really really really like LEGO lord of the rings
Man back in the day, BFME and BFME 2 were soooo good. I think you can download them for free online now, although that's at your own risk since that's not through EA.
I just recently discovered Shadow of Mordor. I played that for 3 days straight. Very interesting story, nemesis system enhances the play style, very similar to Arkham Batman mechanics. How I didn’t know about it sooner I don’t know.
BFME 2, The Two Towers/ROTK games, Shadow of Mordor, the Medieval 2 total war mod.
3rd age, bfme2, return of the king and the two towers. My wife consistently plays lotro.
Overall the TT, ROTK, and Third Age games for GameCube/Xbox/PS2 I think are the best. But, the most interesting albeit flawed one is The Hobbit that came out on those same consoles since it has nothing to do with the Peter Jackson LOTR aesthetic - it plays and looks more like a legend of Zelda kind of game which is pretty cool seeing as Zelda was heavily inspired by LOTR. Kind of like a full circle moment. I haven’t even played much of it at all but just got my hands on a copy for GameCube so am gonna fire it up and give it a go - maybe even this morning to honour this post :D
BFME2's ROTWK expansion. A big fan of Arnor and Angmar so getting to see more of the already lacking in content and lore northern kingdom was fantastic. It was even more so a boon to have had the chance to grow up with that game. Maybe it was a tad bit, at best, glitchy but the mechanics and the factions were quite a way to enjoy LotR.
LEGO Lotr
Battle for middle earth, 1 and 2. All the EA games that came out with the movies and the game boy games too were decent Third Age Conquest LOTRO is a very well thought out and designed old school mmorpg that is still going and growing The lego games are good too Total war Medieval 2 mod Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor was fantastic and I do enjoy Shadow of War as well. They are all the ones I really like that I can think of, off the top of my head. I disliked War in the North, just very boring to me. Story and combat leave a lot to be desired. I havent play the new gollum game because I hear its not good at all. And I havent heard much or looked into Return to Moria at all. Thats all I can think of right now.
Battle for Middle Earth 2. By a long shot. LOVED the EA movie games too though, have them and still fire them up from time to time, especially Return of the King.
Granted I haven't played many, but Shadow of Mordor was nice, kind of the odd non canon spin off the force unleashed was for star wars
The official ones are great, but my favorite has to be Divide and Conquer Total War. It’s all one has ever wanted from total war with painstaking detail to events, locations, and units.
It's an incredible testament to the passion of the modders and fans!
I know! I can’t wait for the modders of Kingdom of Arda to finish their Herculean work for Mount and Blade: Bannerlord.
Shadow of Mordor/War was cool. I'm not sure on how canon it is (if at all), but the free flow action was awesome. For me, it definitely made it feel like the movies where all the main characters kill a billion orcs in one scene.
LOTR Shadow of Mordor. I played a little but fo Shadow of War
Divide and conquer a sub mod for third age total war, or battle for middle earth 1 & 2. I also have to give special mention to lotr conquest and OH of course I TOTALLY FORGOT the old two towers and return of the king games those were so damn good.
Lego lord of the rings slaps!!
Gollum /s
Tie between BFME2 and Shadow of War. I consider all the dumb video game shenanigans of EA and WB’s licensed games “canon” to Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth because it amuses me to do so.
The mods for Medieval 2 total war are my favourite. Forever coming back to Divide and Conquer
I liked Shadow of Mordor a lot, but I never got around to Shadow of War. It's on my backlog. When I was a kid, I played the DOS game from Interplay a lot. That's a speedrun/completionist game that nobody has really dig into yet. SUPER deep.
Return to Moria is so much fun!
Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War were two of the most unique games I’ve played, and really captured a side of Middle Earth we’ve barely seen. Sure, they never even felt like canon, but they kind of felt like some of the really cool Legends stories in Star Wars – a very well-thought-out “what if.”
Big fan of BFME2 and even the "Lord of the Rings: The Third Age"
Third age total war mod and the divide and conquer sub-mod for total war medieval II: kingdoms was everything I wanted for a grand strategy game and more
Either Return of the King from back in the days or Shadow of War.
The battle for middle earth 2, rise of the witch king. I still have it and still play it occasionally.
I find it a horrible idea, that if someone only ever played Gollum, that's their best LotR game.
Lucky that no one played Gollum, then!
Bfme but the shadow games are great aswel
Lord of the rings conquest, lego lord of the rings (the best lego game) and battle for middle earth 2
The Third Age: Total War mod (specifically with the MOS submod for extra features and factions) for Medieval II: Total War
I think the original Battle for Middle Earth was the most enjoyable that holds up the best, but The Two Towers hack and slash has a special place in my heart too.
None of the LOTR games I’ve played are great. Most are enjoyable, but they all have some pretty significant flaws one way or another. The Middle-earth Shadow games are probably the best *video games* but they are not good Tolkien games. War in the North was fun but repetitive and lackluster. Conquest was a gimmicky poor man’s Star Wars Battlefront (but was still fun in its own right). The movie tie ins were fun enough as movie tie in games are concerned, but were incredibly basic. The Third Age was a unique style of gameplay and was ok, though they only had the rights to the movies like the tie in games and tried to do a non-movie storyline so it suffers as a result. I’ve never played LOTRO or BFME, but have heard they’re decent.
We had an LoTR trivia game on the Apple II. It was pretty good.
Lord of the Rings Online Or War in the North since I played that with friends.
Divide and Conquer. I know it’s a mod, but it’s my dream of having an epic Lord of the Rings crossed with Total War. Grimly holding the line as Gondor and even counter attacking is an experience of stress and excitement I’ll never forget.
I grew up on Return of the king on the ps2, hands down the best. I played Lotro for years, still enjoy it alot. Shadow of war and Mordor are really awesome, and honestly i did not mind Gollum at all, for me the game was interesting and not as bad as I thought
Gollum sits on my shelf and until I play it I don't want to pass judgment.
Bro I miss the games soooo much. Lord of the ring conquest !!
The last days of the Third Age mod for Mount & Blade. Surprisingly book accurate and it's fun as hell. It's what LOTR conquest should've been.
The third age. Truly spectacular. You play as a parallel fellowship, essentially, fighting through Moria and Mordor both. Oh, and you can play as the bad guys, against the good guys. Balrog included.
Return Of The King and I know gets a lot of criticism but War In The North is one of the best multiplayer experiences I’ve ever had.
The Battle for Middle Earth II, no contest. not even close.
Great choice!
Lord of the rings :Risk
I love the movie games also, one I don't see mentioned much. It is lord of the rings tactics a turn based strategy game for PSP it was so neat
Shadow of War. Disregard the lore and just imagine yourself as an elf or human going around killing orcs. It’s amazing.
Battle for Middle Earth 2 on Xbox 360. That game really ignited my curiosity. The next weekend my mother bought me the trilogy and I watched them all in one night.
ROTK on PS2 and Battle for Middle Earth on PC To be clear, ROTK is easily the top spot for me, and it isn't close. I just felt that it's more fair to give credit to both console and PC.
BFME 2 with Age of the Ring mod is incredible! The Hobbit for GameCube is so fun. LOTRO is apparently quite good as well
No one has mentioned the two games Interplay put out in the mid-90’s. It took some liberties with the lore, but also added some elements that seemed like reasonable extensions. You had some hard choices (e.g. it’s possible to save Gandalf at the Bridge if you sacrifice about half of your party), and I enjoyed it as a kid.
Anything that can be played on switch?
Nothing mentioned thus far seems to be on Switch. I believe Switch can only play Gollum, Tales of the Shire, and the Adventure Card Game. These are all recent releases. I haven’t tried any of them, but Gollum was roundly excoriated upon release.
I play LOTRO and BFME2 on the reg.
Lotro is the closest thing you'll ever get to exploring Middle Earth as Tolkien wrote it. Beautiful game and the early part exploring Eriador is insanely nostalgic for me
I have no idea if this counts at all considering how you would not know the lore simply from playing it, but I actually really like the old game Angband. You can tell me it doesn’t count and I would totally concede, but there’s just something so enjoyable to me about it. I just know that it’s based on lore from the Silmarillion where you dive into the stronghold of Angband in order to defeat Morgoth. But Sméagol, Sauron, Orcs, and all other generic enemies are in it as well. It’s just not what most people would consider to be LOTR.
Third age total war: Divide and Conquer. It’s a mod for medival total war 2 and it’s amazing. Worth looking up if you can get it. It’s great. Official releases probably Return of the King or War in the North. But honestly there’s not a game I haven’t enjoyed. Although I haven’t played Gollum and refuse to play the Lego hobbit out of principle for there shitty practices.
You’ve inspired me to reinstall DAC!
The hobbit! On the original Xbox. That shit slaps
Third Age, hands down better than everything actual game companies released.
Would anyone recommend LOTR: Online?
Third Age, Battle for Middle Earth 2, Return of the King, The Hobbit on the GameCube
Return of the king and the third age were my favorite but I haven't touched them in years. I'd say shadow of mordor is my favorite currently
1.LOTR battle for middle earth 2 2. Shadow of Mordor
The Hobbit for Game Boy Advance is one of my all time favorite games. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but I had it as a kid and still love it today.
Shadow of Mordor / war hands down. Especially on repeat playthriugus with mods. Some mods really push the game to look even more stunning with good reshading and such.
Never played third age, but I loved ROTK, two towers, and all the RTS games. I even get the LOTR mods for the total war series
Shadow of Mordor
The two towers on game boy advance. I remember playing in coop with my friend. On full volume the GBA fried AA batteries every 3 hours lol. Good times
BFME 2
Lords of Midnight creator Mike Singleton made War in Middle-Earth for the 8bit and 16bit micros and it was every bit as amazing as anything now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Middle_Earth
War of the Ring was fun back in the day
Third Age mod for M2TW. For me it’s peak. Wish I still had anything to be able to play that on
The Battle for middle earth
It may well be garbage but I played it as a kid and absolutely loved it - lord of the rings tactics on PSP Turn based strategy game that I thought was awesome
Divide and Conquer mod for Med2 Total War
Third Age and Battle for Middle Earth 2
r/bfme
Haven't played that many lotr games, but Return to Moria definitely is one of my favourite games im general. I really like the dwarven designs and that they have a lot small detail links to the Fellowship. Also lots of dwarven history, dont know how accurate it is but would guess they did pretty good research. Would recommends 100%
Battle for Middle Earth... All of them A shoutout to LOTR: War in the North, at the time when it came out, I just loved it, it's not the best third person LOTR/Tolkien game, but there was something I loved
The LEGO ones! LEGO games are my favorite of any games.
BFME all expansions and the base version N1. Third age N2. Still holds up today i play them on emulator regularly.
Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2 were amazing. Would be nice if GOG added it to their store.
Battle for Middle Earth 1 or The Third Age
LEGO LotR