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There are many video games that have been inspired byJ. R. R. Tolkien's works set inMiddle-earth. Titles have been produced by studios such asElectronic Arts,Vivendi Games,Melbourne House, andWarner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.[1][2]
In 1982,Melbourne House began a series of licensedLord of the Rings graphical interactive fiction (text adventure) games withThe Hobbit, based on the book with the same name.[3] The game was considered quite advanced at the time, with interactive characters that moved between locations independent of the player, and Melbourne House's 'Inglish' text parser which accepted full-sentence commands where the norm was simple two-word verb/noun commands.[4][5] They went on to release 1986'sThe Fellowship of the Ring, 1987'sShadows of Mordor, and 1989'sThe Crack of Doom. ABBC Micro text adventure released around the same time was unrelated to Melbourne's titles except for the literary origin. In 1987, Melbourne House releasedWar in Middle Earth, areal-time strategy game.[6][7] Konami also released an action-strategy game titledJ. R. R. Tolkien's Riders of Rohan.[8]
The Lord of Rings: Journey to Rivendell was announced in 1983 by Parker Brothers for the Atari 2600, but was never released. The prototype ROM can be found at AtariAge.[9][10]
In 1990,Interplay, in collaboration withElectronic Arts (who would later obtain the licenses to the film trilogy), releasedLord of the Rings Vol. I (a special CD-ROM version of which featured cut-scenes fromRalph Bakshi'sanimated adaptation) and the following year'sLord of the Rings Vol. II: The Two Towers, a series ofrole-playing video games based on the events of the first two books. A third instalment was planned, but never released. Interplay's games mostly appeared on the PC and Amiga, but later they did aLord of the Rings game for theSNES, which was different from the PC Version. ALord of the Rings game forSega Genesis was planned to be released by Electronic Arts but never released.[11][12][13] In 2000,Troika Games was contracted to make aLord of the Rings game bySierra On-Line based on the novel. In 2001, Sierra decided to develop the game internally. The game was cancelled in 2002, when Sierra shut down their development studio.[14]
Thereafter, no officialThe Lord of the Rings titles were released until the making ofPeter Jackson'sThe Lord of the Rings film trilogy forNew Line Cinema in the early 2000s, which brought the story to the mass market.Electronic Arts obtained the licences for the three films, whileVivendi Games obtained the licence to produce games based on the books fromTolkien Enterprises. This gave rise to an unusual situation: Electronic Arts produced no adaptation ofThe Fellowship of the Ring, but produced adaptations ofThe Two Towers (which covered events of both the first two films)[15] andThe Return of the King,[16] whereas Vivendi only produced a game covering the first volume of Tolkien's work,The Fellowship of the Ring.[17] While Vivendi's access to the book rights prevented them from using material from the film, it permitted them to include elements ofThe Lord of the Rings which were not in the films. EA, on the other hand, were not permitted to do this, as they were only licensed to develop games based on the films, which left out elements of the original story or deviated in places.[18]
In 2003, Vivendi produced an adaptation ofThe Hobbit, aimed at a younger audience:The Hobbit,[19] as well as a real-time strategy gameThe Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring, both based on Tolkien's literature.[20][21]
Further spin-offs from the film trilogy were produced: A real time strategy gameThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth,[22] and aturn-based role-playing gameThe Lord of the Rings: The Third Age were released in 2004,[23][24] and aPSP-exclusive title,The Lord of the Rings: Tactics in 2005.[25]
In 2005, EA secured the rights to both the films and the books, thusThe Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II incorporated elements of the film adaptions, and the original Tolkienesque lore.[26] EA also began work on an open worldrole-playing video game calledThe Lord of the Rings: The White Council, but it was put on indefinite hold in early 2007,[27] with no further information about its developmental or release status.
In May 2005Turbine, Inc. announced that they had acquired exclusive rights to createmassively multiplayer online role-playing games based on the novel byTolkien Enterprises,[28] and launchedThe Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar on 24 April 2007.[29] Initially, the game covered the region ofEriador, from the Grey Havens to theMisty Mountains, and about as far north and south, but subsequent updates and expansion packs have more than doubled the game world, including areas such asMoria,Lothlórien,Mirkwood,Isengard andRohan. The game is based on the books and Turbine's licence explicitly prohibits them from including any story or design elements unique to the movie adaptations. On the other hand, this allowed game designers to include lesser-known areas and references to the events, which are absent from the movies. The first expansion toThe Lord of the Rings Online was released on 18 November 2008, entitledMines of Moria.[30] The next expansion,Siege of Mirkwood, was released on 1 December 2009.[31]The third expansion titledRise of Isengard went live on 27 September 2011 and included the areas of Dunland, the Gap of Rohan and Isengard where the tower of Orthanc is located.[32] The fourth expansion,Riders of Rohan, was released on 15 October 2012, featuring The Eaves of Fangorn and eastern part of Rohan up to the East Wall.[33] The fifth expansion,Helm's Deep, launched in November 2013 and added the remainder of the Rohan landscape.[34]
The Lord of the Rings: Conquest produced byPandemic Studios using the sameengine used inStar Wars: Battlefront was released in early 2009 on the PC and all seventh-generation video game systems except the Wii and PSP. All versions received mixed reviews, with theNintendo DS version garnering slightly better reviews.[35] The game also marked the end of Electronic Arts licence, which had already been extended some months so that the game could be completed. Subsequently, the licence, obtained viaTolkien Enterprises, passed toWarner Bros.[36]
After Warner Bros. gained the licence to publish Middle-earth video games, the first game to be published under this new licence holder would beThe Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest, anaction-adventure retelling of the Peter Jackson film trilogy fromAragorn's perspective, onNintendo andSony video game platforms, withWii andPlayStation 3 versions taking advantage ofmotion controls to simulate sword, shield and bow combat.[37]
The 2010s saw the release of three darker and more violent Middle-earth video games that were rated Mature by theESRB. The first of such games wasThe Lord of the Rings: War in the North, anaction role-playing game that takes place in NorthernMiddle-earth. It was developed bySnowblind Studios and released on 1 November 2011.[38][39][40] ThenMonolith Productions developed a two-game, non-canonMiddle-earth: Shadow spin-off series, set between the events ofThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings. The main protagonist of these two action RPGs is aRanger named Talion who bonds with the Elf spiritCelebrimbor, gaining wraith-like powers to deal with adversaries. The first game,Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was released in 2014,[41] with its sequel,Middle-earth: Shadow of War, released in 2017.[42]
In that same decade, Warner Bros. releasedLego The Lord of the Rings andLego The Hobbit, two family-friendlyLego video game adaptations of theLord of the Rings film trilogy,The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey andThe Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.[43][44] In 2019,The Lord of the Rings: Adventure Card Game was released, a digital adaptation of the physical card game,[45][46] and the first-everMiddle-Earth video game available on theNintendo Switch.
In 2022, Warner Bros. Games lost the rights to publishMiddle-Earth games, after the sale of Middle-earth Enterprises toEmbracer Group, the parent company ofTHQ Nordic.[47] Various companies then stepped up to develop or publish their ownMiddle-Earth games licensed by MEE.
An action-adventure game, titledThe Lord of the Rings: Gollum and focusing onthe titular character, was announced byDaedalic Entertainment in March 2019.[48] The game was originally scheduled for release in 2021, which would end up being pushed to 2022,[49][50][51] until publisherNacon announced a release date of 25 May 2023 for Microsoft Windows and various non-Nintendo consoles available at the time, with a Nintendo Switch version being planned.[52] The game was released to generally negative reviews, and the Switch version remains unreleased as of 2025[update].
Ahead ofGollum's initial release, a new mobile game, titledThe Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth, was released for iOS and Android on May 10, 2023 by Electronic Arts,[53][54] and was the first game to be released by the publisher since 2009'sThe Lord of the Rings: Conquest. It is a turn-based role-playing game developed by EA Capital Games that plays similarly to its previously developedStar Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. However, nearly a year after worldwide launch, Electronic Arts prematurely ended support for the game, shutting it down on May 24, 2024,[55] amidst the turmoil of the2023–2024 video game industry layoffs that affected the company's development projects.
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is asurvival-crafting multiplayer game forninth-generation consoles (PlayStation 5 andXbox Series) and computers, developed by Free Range Games and published by North Beach Games, first released on October 24, 2023 on Microsoft Windows. The story takes place during theFourth Age and follows a company ofdwarves as they try to retake their homelandMoria and restore the long-lost ancient kingdom of Khazad-dûm.[56] In 2024Weta Workshop announced anon-violentMiddle-Earth game about the peaceful life of Hobbits inthe Shire, titledTales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game and due to be released byPrivate Division on July 29, 2025[57] on the same platforms asReturn to Moria, plus the Nintendo Switch.
Unofficial games includeShadowfax (1982) by Postern, a simplistic side-scrolling action game for the Spectrum, C64, and VIC-20, in which Gandalf rides the titular steed while smiting endless Nazgûl. Some of the most enduring unlicensed games areMoria (1983), aroguelike based loosely onThe Fellowship of the Ring (and unrelated toa 1975 game of the same name with only scant connection to Tolkien); its variousforks such asAngband (1990), loosely based onThe Silmarillion;Elendor (1991), aMUSH based on Tolkien in general;[58][59] and twoMUDs based onThe Lord of the Rings:MUME (Multi-Users in Middle-earth) (1992)[60][61] andThe Two Towers (1994).[62]
A homebrew text adventure was created for the Atari 2600, based on The Fellowship of the Ring, by Adam Thornton. The game, which is separate and not related to the unreleased Parker Brothers game,[9] was self-published in 2002.[63]
Tolkien-inspiredmods and custom maps have been made for many games, such asHeroes of Might and Magic,Warcraft III,Neverwinter Nights,Rome: Total War,Medieval 2: Total War,Warlords 3,The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,Mount & Blade,Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, andAge of Wonders. The gameMinecraft has been used extensively as a tool to recreate Middle-earth, most notably the servers MCME (Minecraft Middle Earth)[64] and ArdaCraft,[65] in addition to large-scale mods likeThe Lord of the Rings Mod: Bringing Middle-earth to Minecraft.[66] Furthermore,The Middle-Earth DEM Project released a playable dataset compiled for Outerra's engine which attempts to model the terrain of the full Middle-earth in great detail and to feature notable landmarks within the world as 3D models.[67]
Delta 4 released the two parody gamesBored of the Rings (1985, not directly based on theHarvard Lampoon parody novelof the same name),[68] andThe Boggit (1986).[69]
The Switch version will follow later in 2023.
Elendor is a very large and successful Mush dedicated to role playing and exploration in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. This is the same universe immortalized in the classicLord of the Rings trilogy, the books that defined sword-and-sorcery fantasy. If you don't want to encounter a lot of other players, this is the wrong Mush to play in. Elendor is well populated, and it is hard to move around without encountering other characters.
Elendor, an old-school Middle-earth multiuser shared hallucination, remains one of the most popular text-based worlds in cyberspace.
MUME IVMulti-Users in Middle Earth, or MUME, simulates Tolkien's world of Middle Earth. [...] Role-playing is encouraged, but this is primarily an adventure and combat MUD. [...] Server: Diku
MUME [...] The action takes place in the late Third Age, beforeThe Hobbit and after the loss of the One Ring by Sauron. The key of Erebor was just found by Gandalf and all the epic tales narrated inThe Lord of the Rings may take place.
Two Towers Multi-User Dungeon http://www.angband.com/towers This page serves as an entrance to the Two Towers Multi-User Dungeon, allowing game players to step into the world of fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien. Intrepid visitors can learn about the game or link to Tolkien sites dotting the net.
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