Some thoughts about Middle-earth in video games

I have noticed that when you talk about Middle-earth in video games you often talk about specific games and rarely the general use of Tolkien's works. Of course, it makes sense that you want to talk specifically about the latest game or the one you enjoyed the most. I have played most of the Tolkien-inspired games that have been released since 2002 and want to share my opinions about the different ways video games adapt the books of Tolkien (or the movies of Peter Jackson).

Unfortunately, Tolkien-inspired video games suffers from something of a repetition syndrome. A lot of games simply repeat the books or, more frequently, the movie adaptions. Repeating is not necessarily a bad thing, I really enjoyed The Two Towers (2002) and The Return of the King (2003). These games did not feel very repetitive when they were released as they were the first game adapations of the movies, but then The Third Age (2004) and The Battle for Middle-earth (2004). In these games you experience the movies all over again, with the obvious differences that The Battle for Middle-earth is a strategy game and The Third Age has a turn-based combat system and include non-canon characters.

I am not going to lie, I played The Battle for Middle-earth and The Third Age for countless hours when I was younger. To be fair they are both very enjoyable, but when it comes to The Third Age there are some things I just cannot overlook. First off, you basically play as the fellowship of the ring, except you do not. You do pretty much all the things the fellowship does, you are just a few steps behind, so your goal with these non-canon characters is to stalk the canon characters. Secondly, The Third Age features the worst name of any character in any Middle-earth video game ever: Hadhod, the dwarf of the company. His name is Sindarin, you know what it means? Dwarf. His name literally means "dwarf".

Another game that features a fellowship that is not THE fellowship is War in the North (2011), in which you explore the northern regions of Middle-earth during the war of the ring. The main antagonist of this game is not made up by Tolkien but the feel of autencity is still there as you meet a variety of canonical characters like Elladan and Elrohir. But the most interesting aspect is the different places you get to explore, that you seldomly come across in other games.

The undoubtedly best thing about The Battle for Middle-earth is its sequel. In 2006 The Battle for Middle-earth II was released and it is, in my opinion, still the best Middle-earth game in existence. This game explores parts of Tolkien's world not covered by Peter Jackson's movies, and it does so in a respectful way. For instance, this is the only game where you can experience the siege of Erebor. As much as I love the movie adaptions of LotR, I wish that more games explored other parts and events of Middle-earth like this. The most unique games, in terms of not being like the movies, are no doubt Shadow of Mordor (2014) and Shadow of War (2017), but my opinion about these games is not a very popular one.

The liberties taken by the creators of Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War are of such proportions that it seems to me that LotR and Tolkien are simply regarded as means of income. Obviously, every game is a mean of income to the creator. In these games however, the story differs so much from the works of Tolkien that the only (to me) logical reason to base them on Tolkien in the first place is to make more money. In other words, these games does not seem to be based on the books of Tolkien because the creators want to explore more of Middle-earth, but because the name Tolkien is a good selling point. Some that I have talked to have argued that these games are wanted because they are not repetition of the movies, and with the titles mentioned above in mind that is a legitimate argument, but to me it is simply too much of its own thing. I should perhaps also mention that I am not a fan of the gameplay, so my dislike is not entirely based on the story.

I have not mentioned all the games I have played but hopefully I have made clear that repetition is too common in Middle-earth video games. As much as I dislike the Shadow games I understand that people enjoy them since they are not repetitions, truthful or not. Tolkien-inspired games can be quite disappointing in gameplay, like The Fellowship of the Ring (2002) or Aragorn's Quest (2010), so when a unique game with decent gameplay is released it is no wonder people enjoy it.