- Picture: EA
For some it may be hard to get excited about another Lord of the Rings game. A whole wave of titles about the epic stories of Frodo and his friends in Middle Earth came out just after the film– some told it well, and some not so well. These must still be selling however, enough for another title to appear – the Lord of the Rings: Conquest. By choosing Pandemic EA has chosen to work with a developer who knows what they are in for though.
Pandemic are the ones who successfully brought the battlefield back to the Star Wars universe with Star Wars: Battlefront. This proved popular enough to progress, and over time has built up a community of online players who have continually battled on the darker or the lighter side of the force. According to first reports this concept will be quite directly applied to Middle Earth. Hand-to-hand combat will of course play a bigger part here, and players will move around on horses instead of AT-STs. Aside from this though, Pandemic seem to be sticking closely to the original concept.
Lord of the Rings fans will be able to live through all the important battles in the saga, whether as an officer, the hero of the story, or one of the smaller members, such as an ent or a troll. There are even some scenes that are not explicitly shown in the film – such as the destruction of the Shire that only Frodo sees in a vision. Pandemic promises huge battlefields with many units.
Conquest should be out this autumn on the PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Nintendo DS. The online components will be an important part of all versions.