Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Features

Heroes of Middle-Earth isn’t afraid to play with Lord of the Rings canon

Tomas Franzese
By

The Lord of the Rings franchise has a storied history in almost every entertainment medium, and we are entering a new era for its film and gaming efforts. As Amazon continues to produce The Rings of Power, Middle-Earth Enterprises has been acquired by Embracer Group. Instead of all of The Lord of Rings’ games being made by Warner Bros., which had been the case for some time, we are now seeing lots of studios make games in the Lord of the Rings universe, providing their own spin on the idea. While The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is doing that on consoles this month, mobile game players are also getting a brand new game.

The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-Earth is on the way from Capital Games and EA, and I attended a preview event for the game ahead of its launch on May 10. This game takes the character-collecting RPG approach established through its previous game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and gives it a Middle-Earth makeover. What’s most intriguing about the title, though, is that it’s not afraid to ask “What if?” while playing around in the world of this long-running franchise.

Recommended Videos

What if?

When it comes to gameplay, my brief playtime with Heroes of Middle-Earth didn’t surprise me. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a mobile character-collecting RPG set in The Lord of the Rings universe. Still, the character-based approach allows Capital Games to play in The Lord of the Rings sandbox in ways few creatives have been able to. It has more freedom to craft more experimental scenarios with the franchise’s iconic characters, as it’s not as concerned with falling in line with lore.

An evil Galadriel in Heroes of Middle-Earth
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The premise is that players have discovered a new Ring of Power, which they must use to keep The Lord of the Rings timeline intact as a mysterious enemy is trying to throw it in disarray. That setup means that the game can create scenarios that don’t necessarily align with the Middle-Earth canon. Players can make characters from different time periods, races, and allegiances team up in a way that wouldn’t work anywhere else. They’ll encounter a Galadriel who was corrupted by the Ring and other characters who may have strayed from the path laid for them in the books and films. Post-launch, some of these alternate versions of characters will eventually become playable as well.

Related

In the age of the multiverse story in media, these kinds of “What if?” scenarios make for a novel The Lord of the Rings game set pieces and give the developers plenty of room to come up with future characters for players to collect. In a press roundtable, Heroes of Middle-Earth Design Director Jay Ambrosini was undoubtedly enthusiastic about these concepts but said the team is also making sure any of these ideas and alternate timelines that they do pursue feeling respectful toward the world J.R.R. Tolkien established.

“There are so many characters that you look at and see the small little decisions that happen and affect them, and it’s so fun to think about what happens if they made the other decision,” Ambrosini says. “They are fun things to explore and talk about, but the most important thing to us is that we’re telling a genuine Tolkien story and that we’re very faithful to the laws of the world that exist. Good deeds are rewarded with goodness; bad deeds are rewarded with bad things happening. We’re making sure that we’re appreciating and celebrating those pieces of Tolkien’s work.”

Combat in Heroes of Middle Earth
Image used with permission by copyright holder

That playful but faithful approach is certainly an apt one for a developer to take in this new era for The Lord of the Rings. We’re likely going to have a lot of different companies working on various versions of The Lord of the Rings in movies, TV, and games, and it may start to feel like a bit of a Middle-Earth multiverse, even if that’s unintentional. Heroes of the Middle-Earth is embracing that possibility head-on, and doing so seems to be the best approach that could’ve taken with what otherwise appears to be a straightforward character-collecting RPG.

The Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-Earth is available now for iOS and Android.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Splatoon 3’s Side Order DLC shows that the series can do it all
An Inkling shoots an enemy spawner in Splatoon 3 Side Order.

When I reviewed Splatoon 3 in 2022, I found myself impressed by what a robust suite of content it offered at launch. It had a solid single-player campaign, great competitive multiplayer, a killer PVE mode in Salmon Run, and even a fun card minigame. All of those disparate modes meshed together perfectly to make Splatoon 3 the kind of game you could pick away at for hundreds of hours. And with its latest DLC, called Side Order, that's more true than ever.

The narrative-focused roguelite brings an entirely new experience to Splatoon. It has players trying to clear randomized runs through a 30-floor tower full of challenges. While that task can initially be cleared in a few hours, a robust postgame turns Side Order into a full-on game within a game. If Splatoon 3 wasn't already the Switch game that offered the most bang for your buck, it is now. And that's all thanks to an ingenious gameplay hook that's proven to be Nintendo's most valuable creation of the past decade.
Order in chaos
In the shooter's latest DLC, players find themselves in a dystopian version of Inkopolis Square that's devoid of color. At the center of it all is the ominous Spire of Order, which is ruled by a rogue machine that's hell-bent on ridding the world of chaos. For those who remember Splatoon 2's final, world-changing Order versus Chaos Splatfest, it's an excellent bit of narrative payoff that shows how players are tangibly shaping Nintendo's inky world.

Read more
How to run emulators on the Steam Deck
Emulator collection on Steam Deck.

The Steam Deck is a very emulator-friendly system, and with a few tips and tricks, you can learn how to run emulators on the Steam Deck in just a few minutes. When Valve designed the Steam Deck, it knew that players would be interested in emulation to recreate their favorite gaming systems of years gone by to enjoy some timeless classics. That’s why the Steam Deck allows you to pick and run an emulator right out of the box.

Read more
The best Mac games for 2024
Minthara in Baldur's Gate 3.

Macs have always been hit-or-miss when it comes to gaming. Until just a few years ago, it was always a gamble as to whether a game would come to this operating system, and most of the time, thingsdidn't pay off. However, at WWDC 2022, Apple committed to starting "a new day" for Mac gaming, with a focus on on two new features to make the platform better. These features are MetalFX, an upscaling program, and the Fast Resource Loading API, which will decrease game loading times.

With these new advancements, more and more games will be coming to Mac, bringing with them a new group of gamers looking for something to play. It doesn't matter what kind of Mac gamer you are -- there's something for you. That includes AAA blockbusters like Shadow of the Tomb Raider, methodical shooters like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and indie darlings like Stardew Valley. Apple fans may not have access to every Windows game and Steam game, but you'll still find many of the best PC games below.

Read more