RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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16 years ago, we used a trailer for the then-upcoming action RPG Lord of the Rings: War in the North to drop a sick burn on people who maybe take their Tolkien a little too seriously. The game launched a year later, in 2011, to middling reviews and disappointing sales, and there it sat until the delisting process began in late 2018; SteamDB indicates it got the axe on Steam the following February. But now it's back, which you already knew because you read the headline, in a Legacy Edition version, with enhancements including hot-swappable characters, refined enemy-target locking, an improved interface, new autosave feature, and numerous bug fixes.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Legacy Edition follows the "untold story" of Agandaûr, a servant of Sauron who's raised a powerful army in the ruins of Fornost. Naturally, it falls to you to deal with it while that other Fellowship is horsing around on Mount Doom: "Build your own Fellowship of three heroes and confront the growing threat in the North, making your mark on Middle-earth in a grand adventure with visceral, satisfying combat and rich character progression."
It was never entirely clear why the original Lord of the Rings: War in the North was delisted, but the reasonable assumption—as always—is that expiring licenses had something to do with it.
That could also explain the comeback: It's complicated and I can't promise it makes sense, but Aspyr, the developer of the Legacy Edition, is owned by Embracer, which also owns Middle-earth Enterprises, and through that a whole bunch of Lord of the Rings stuff. So basically, it's all Embracer, so they can do what they want.
Embracer recently announced a plan to spin off Middle-earth Enterprises and a bunch of other stuff it owns into a standalone company called Fellowship Entertainment, but you probably won't see a lot of light between them: Once the spinoff is complete, just about all of Embracer's C-suite—CEO Phil Rogers, COO Lee Guinchard, and CFO Müge Bouillon—will move to take the same roles at the new company.
As you might expect, given that it's all Embracer, there's more of this to come: "Fans can look forward to even more classic releases by Aspyr from the beloved franchise in the future!" the studio said.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Legacy Edition is live now on Steam and currently 10% off its regular $20 price.
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