The Lord of the Rings: The War in the North

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is an action role-playing hack-and-slash video game released in 2011 by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows. Feral Interactive created and released an OS X port in 2013. It is the first video game based on both J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1954 high fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson’s 2001 (The Fellowship of the Ring), 2002 (The Two Towers), and 2003 film trilogy adaptations (The Return of the King). This is because, until 2009, Vivendi Universal Games held the rights to create games based on Tolkien’s literary works in collaboration with Tolkien Enterprises, while Electronic Arts held the rights to develop games based on New Line Cinema films. WB Games purchased the rights to both intellectual properties in 2009. The game contains narrative elements unique to the novel and the movie. Still, the aesthetic design is more specifically based on the look of the films, with characters in the game bearing the likenesses of the actors who played them in the films. The game does not directly adapt to the story depicted in the novel and movies. Instead, it represents a trio of adventurers whose quest parallels and occasionally intersects with the main narrative. The plot follows them as they attempt to track down and defeat a powerful Black Nmenórean named Agandaûr, whom Sauron hired to destroy Middle-earth’s northern regions while focusing on Rohan and Gondor. Critics praised the game’s graphics and tone while criticizing the repetitive combat, weak storyline, and poor character development. It was also chastised for containing several game-breaking bugs. War in the North was a commercial flop, which many critics blamed on the game’s release date several weeks after Dark Souls, the same day as Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, and ten days before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.