The original game is still a great game but it did have it's limitations mainly with only one shared inventory thankfully with this new edition that has been sorted out; with each character now having their own inventory , giving the player more space to share items or to store items if playing solo. Now being able to swap between the characters especially for upgrading, repairs and changing weapons and armour makes the game more fluid., plus having the characters this way also means they all have their own coin to buy the potions they require while in battle, and they will use them on their own.

For those new to this game there are certain things you need to know; each character has their own set of skills broken into three skill trees, so to get the most out of these skills you need to play the game 4 times on each difficulty and the enemy is always a difficulty higher than you. Easy difficulty will give you the most coin which will be essential for the higher difficulties as everything will cost more as you move to the next difficulty. The game carries everything over to the next difficulty including skills, so if you ignore easy difficulty you are ignoring between 18 - 20 skills that you won't have when you reach legendary difficulty. So play all difficulties, also heroic and legendary difficulties are locked till you get through normal difficulty.

The story is a wonderful story that is believable within the Lord of The Rings lore and is an enjoyable one. Do all side quests to get the most out of the game which will also give you rare gifts even from a dragon.

I highly recommend this game as it is in my opinion a rare classic .

TO ANYONE HAVING ISSUES IN MULTIPLAYER WITH SAVING
As it is, the host is the only one who keeps a save. the other two players will not have a save, and when they continue from where they left off it will pop up in the top right that you aren't able to save. There's a very easy fix to this.

The host needs to send you their save file located in C:\Users\(YOURNAMEHERE)\AppData\Local\Aspyr\War in the North
Upload the save file to Discord or wherever, it's only a few kb and have the two other players put the save in the same location. They can select the character they played, load into the save, interact with a vendor and exit to menu to save it to their local PC.

Even if you don't do this, all 3 players will continue to get achievements for progressing through the game but we weren't sure if it would allow us to do NG+ so we made sure to do this. will update when we get to that point.

I played this game when it came out originally on xbox360, Loved it. Love it to death and broke it out recently played it with my son. Its a phenomenal game.

Aspyr had the audacity to release it again after it was delisted and not fix the save bugs.

You cannot play this game as intended and have it save properly. If you use quick match or party finder your progress doesnt save. And if you do a legit group you still have to jump through a bunch of weird hoops to get it to save and even then its not gauranteed it will save.

Im not saying the game is terrible solo, but thats not why I want to play it. Its an amazing fighty co op game, possibly one of the best. Its lord of the rings golden axe.

But if I cant properly play it online with friends or random pick ups I jsut dont care about it at all.

If you are a LOTR fan and love old school gaming, then this really is a treat and a gem of a find. I hate to admit it but I didn’t even know about this game, which makes this all the more exciting for me as I play through it.

I think it’s important to point out that this really isn’t a remake or a remaster. The graphics are a bit better but it still looks and plays like an older console game. It’s essentially a fresh coat of (the same) paint. And I’m not even upset about that. It is beyond refreshing and a pleasure to play. It brings me back to the PlayStation days and to how my love for gaming all started.

What I’ve always loved about LOTR is that there were so many supporting characters, branching stories and battles going on in the background that helped pave the way for the fellowship. We did get to see some of them in the movie/books. And now you get to play it, as this story runs parallel to that one.

The story holds true to the lore and is interesting. I’m loving the cutscenes! The combat is surprisingly fun but of the basic beat em up genre. It’s vintage UI, with its endearing clunkiness. But it’s all manageable and easy enough to follow. I particularly like how you can actually customize your premade character. You can change some of the appearance early on at the Prancing Pony. Your outfit changes with your rotation of gear and there is a skill tree that you can customize to your liking and play style by allocating skill points to different branches.

I haven’t run into any issues. It plays great on the deck, the steam machine and my PC. I have tried both split screen co-op (FYI you only need one game copy but 2 controllers) and online multiplayer (each player needs a copy of the game), and preferred the freedom of play that online offers. We haven’t had any issues with saves on multiplayer mode. Our equipment and progression hasn’t been lost. You can even trade equipment amongst one another. We just make sure to end our session in Bree (or another camp like hub where it is saved automatically).

Overall, this is a very classic way to revisit Middle Earth that fans can appreciate and enjoy for a reasonable price.

Alright, Aspyr did a good job remastering this! Please do more Lord of the Rings games! Battle For Middle Earth 2 perhaps??

This is literally game ruining. As of right now, if you join someones game, you are forced to play as THEIR characters. When you leave, you do not retain any earned progression. No xp, no gear. You are SUPPOSED to get gear and xp. The fun of this was entering random games and showing off your own customized character with his own gear. I wanted to jump around helping randoms and stuff but it all feels pointless if you must play as their character and dont get anything to take back. This is absurd!

Can’t believe you guys release this game. It’s worth 20 bucks if you’re looking for a good single player game and it’s works great for Steam deck too.

When you play multiplayer, ONLY the host keeps their progress, your friends who join lose EVERYTHING. TERRIBLE MULTIPLAYER EXPERIENCE. DO NOT BUY if you planned on playing with friends.

RELEASE CONQUEST NOW

You have my sword Aspyr if you remaster The Third Age.

Also, this game runs well on my older PC, and it hasn't lost its charm. The graphics and voicework range from good enough to "that still looks pretty good". The music is well done even if it doesn't use the official movie music (what a shame!). The gameplay is typical hack and slash (regular and heavy attacks) with a mix of ranged attacks and special abilities. It still feels great to rampage through a bunch of orcs and leave heads and limbs in your wake.

Inventory management is still cumbersome. But, let's be realistic: has any ARPG managed to make a workable inventory system?

If you're a LotR fan, enjoyed this game when it first came out, and you don't own the original release of this game, this should be an easy purchase decision.