The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earthis a new collectible-based strategy RPG from Capital Games, looking at the beloved franchise with “fresh interpretations.” In it, players are chosen by a new Ring which bridges time and lets them see the past. A shadowy figure, they discover, is manipulating history and attempting to corrupt theLord of the Ringstimeline, with players taking control of these heroes to fight back this spreading corruption.
To do so, they’ll be able to explore alternate timelines and decisions through, essentially, “What If” scenarios, which put the belovedstories ofLord of the Ringsat risk. Examples of things players may explore could include what if Galadriel fell to temptation and took the One Ring from Frodo, what if the Nazgul had actually resisted the Ring, and plenty of other options. Of course,The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earthdoesn’t explore every possible tangent of these ‘What If’ scenarios. As game director Nicolas Reinhart told Game Rant during a recent interview, they “would spend all of [their] lives trying to tell that alternate history,” so instead the game will explore it through a few possible characters and leave the rest up to fans to debate.
RELATED:LOTR: How Old is Gollum?
InLord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth,players will be able to sort units into squads. There is some unique synergy among these units, and all of these honor the source material in one way or another. For example, the Road to Rivendell faction consists of Strider and the Hobbits, there is the Misty Mountain Goblins who can produce a constant horde, and the Rohan squad focuses on teamwork, assists, and counterattacks. Players are also able to incorporate large units, which are like monsters with unique passives, designed to feel special and unique but not be required.
And over time,Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earthwill expand factionsas necessary, adjust features and abilities that become meta, and so on. Capital Games isn’t afraid to expand this over time either, with Reinhart making it clear that this wasn’t him “telegraphing anything,” but adding as a possibility,
“What happens when we have other ring bearers, will there be a ring bearer faction one day?”
Perhaps the most exciting element of this is the handling of various units. First off, every unit is named, and if the unit isn’t directly from the source material, Capital Games cooperated with Middle-earth Enterprises to use names based on Tolkien’s conventions, the books and appendices, and so on. Furthermore, there are few, if any, real limitations on squad composition and characters. IfLord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-eartheventually features multiple, different versions of Aragorn, Capital Games said it’d let players use them all in a squad. And finally, the ‘What If’ characters it introduces like, possibly, a corrupted Galadriel will be ownable by players eventually. Capital Games said there won’t be any ‘What If’ characters at launch, but will be in future updates, with Reinhart adding that their playability felt “self-evident” when asked how the studio made this decision:
“It was just always self-evident. If you make something cool like that, you have to put it out there. Don’t get me wrong, there are PvE characters, but even then I would imagine over time, they will probably evolve into ownable characters as well.”
RELATED:What Happened to Gandalf in LOTR?
With such a concept, it definitely seems likeLord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earthis a must-play for fans of the franchise. It’s essentiallyMarvel’sWhat Ifseriesbut applied to Tolkien’s world in a mobile game that lets players not only play with these “toys,” but speculate on their own where stories could ultimately go, whether they agree with Capital Games' interpretation or not. It very much feels like a community-oriented game with a deep respect for the IP and Middle-earth Enterprises.
Not only does the game follow Tolkien’s naming conventions, for example, but Capital Games has spent endless hours doing research, creating vision boards to remain true to the fiction, and using everything it could from Tolkien’s original art, created set pieces based on the book descriptions, and otherwise followed the entire book trilogy, the Appendices,The Hobbit, and more as a guiding light.
If someone wanted aLord of the Ringsgame that was truly reverent of the source material, thenLord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earthis that. That guiding light carries over into the game’s post-launch too. Capital Games briefly outlined some expectations for its future, all following clear lore set out by the franchise, but this includes collectible monsters (large units), storybook raids likethe Mines of Moria, and a Multi-squad PvP experience (which is furthest out).
There is an internal multi-year content roadmap, with Reinhart adding that the studio sees content like this as “scaffolding to work backward on,” meaning that they have big goals and plans to get there, even if not everything is mapped out fully. He also said to take this at face value, but that they have a strong first year mapped out, with some content for year two and beyond mapped out. Of course, this is all dependent on fans' responses to the game, as Reinhart added that,
“…I stay in live service game making and design [for] the conversation with the player and the ability for the devs to react to them. I always refer to it as us playing the game together. We make things, players play with the things, we see what they like and what they don’t like, and then we try to take another pass at it. In many ways, it is communal design. It is a communal way for us all to continue, to keep something going that we all believe in and love.”
Of course, monetization is always a concern in afree-to-play mobile game, but Capital Games promised that its monetization is aimed at giving players a “great value.” For those who don’t have the means to pump money into the game, it was said that everything will be made available over time, with monetization focused on time and access. It’ll ultimately be interesting to see how fans receive this monetization, as well as everything else in the game, but it’s clear thatLord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earthhas the potential to be a big talking point within the community.
Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earthis available now on mobile devices.
