Two years ago, it was revealed that there was a fan-made Battle for Middle-earth being made. The cult-classic Lord of the Rings game was first released in 2004, but fans have been wanting a return to the real-time-strategy game. After many years of waiting, an update for the Lord of the Rings remake is finally here.
Battle forMiddle-earth is often considered one of the best Lord of the Rings games of all time. The RTS had a great visual style and combined tried and true real-time strategy gameplay with the Lord of the Rings IP. Additionally, the depth in combat and innovation helped propel the game to be more than simply a movie tie-in type title.
A massive gameplay reveal has been posted on YouTube showing off the fan-made rework. The game is being made in Unreal Engine 4, which is free for all developers and certainly helpful to a small team working on a fan-made project. It looks rather stunning, considering it is being worked on by fans. The 2004 game looked great for its time, and this is a beautiful recreation of it.
The new video for the fan-made remake dives deep into the gameplay, the development, and more. Details about how the units move, how the team problem solved and created different aspects of the game, and certain gameplay elements are all a part of the eighteen-minute video. One cool feature is the ability to change the camera to a third-person perspective for the sake of cinematics and exploration, though it's not intended to be a third-person action game by any means. There have been some impressive fan-made games throughout the years, and this one has the potential to join them.
As far as the original Battle for Middle-earth, it doesn't look like the series will be returning anytime soon. EA, once considered the worst company in America, once held the Lord of the Rings license and made two RTS games, but now that EA is busy working on other licenses that it signed up to work on, like Star Wars, a continuation of Battle for Middle-earth seems unlikely.
Legal and license hurdles can often shut down projects, like the Goldeneye remake that was recently shut down. The hope would be that this project can continue on and be a joy to fans of Lord of the Rings and the old RTS game from 2003.
Lord of the Rings: Battle For Middle-earth is available for PC.