Middle-earth in video games


Numerous computer and video games have been inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's works set in Middle-earth. Titles have been produced by studios such as Electronic Arts, Vivendi Games, Melbourne House, and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.

Official games

Early efforts

In 1982, Melbourne House began a series of licensed Lord of the Rings graphical interactive fiction games with The Hobbit, based on the book with the same name. 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. They went on to release 1986's , 1987's Shadows of Mordor, and 1989's The Crack of Doom. A BBC Micro text adventure released around the same time was unrelated to Melbourne's titles except for the literary origin. In 1987, Melbourne House released War in Middle Earth, a real-time strategy game. Konami also released an action-strategy game titled J. R. R. Tolkien's Riders of Rohan.
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.
In 1990, Interplay, in collaboration with Electronic Arts, released Lord of the Rings Vol. I and the following year's Lord of the Rings Vol. II: The Two Towers, a series of role-playing video games based on the events of the first two books. A third installment was planned, but never released. Interplay's games mostly appeared on the PC and Amiga, but later they did a Lord of the Rings game for the SNES, which was different from the PC Version.

Film trilogy revival

Thereafter, no official The Lord of the Rings titles were released until the making of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy for New Line Cinema in 2001–2003, when mass-market awareness of the story appeared. Electronic Arts obtained the licenses for the three films, while Vivendi Games obtained the licence to produce games based on the books from Tolkien Enterprises - this gave rise to an unusual situation: Electronic Arts produced no adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring, but produced adaptations named and, whereas Vivendi only produced a game covering the first volume of Tolkien's work,. While Vivendi's access to the book rights prevented them from using material from the film, it permitted them to include elements of The 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.
In 2003, Vivendi produced an adaptation of The Hobbit, aimed at a younger audience: The Hobbit, as well as a real-time strategy game ', both based on Tolkien's literature.
Further spin-offs from the film trilogy were produced: A real time strategy game ', and turn based role-playing game ' were released in 2004, and a PSP-exclusive title, ' in 2005.
In 2005, EA secured the rights to both the films and the books, thus ' incorporated elements of the film adaptions, and the original Tolkienesque lore. EA also began work on an open world role-playing video game called ', but development of the game was cancelled in 2007.
In May 2005 Turbine, Inc. announced that they had acquired exclusive rights to create massively multiplayer online role-playing games based on the novel by Tolkien Enterprises, and launched The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar on 24 April 2007. Initially, the game covered the region of Eriador, from the Grey Havens to the Misty Mountains, and about as far north and south, but subsequent updates and expansion packs have more than doubled the game world, including areas such as Moria, Lothlórien, Mirkwood, Isengard and Rohan. 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 to The Lord of the Rings Online was released on 18 November 2008, entitled '. The next expansion, Siege of Mirkwood, was released on 1 December 2009.
The third expansion titled ' 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. The fourth expansion, ', was released on 15 October 2012, featuring The Eaves of Fangorn and eastern part of Rohan up to the East Wall. The fifth expansion, ', launched in November 2013 and added the remaining of Rohan landscape.
' produced by Pandemic Studios using the same engine used in ' 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 the Nintendo DS version garnering slightly better reviews. 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 via Tolkien Enterprises, passed to Warner Bros.

The Warner Bros. era (2010–)

After Warner Bros. gained the licence to publish Middle-earth video games, the first game to be published under this new licence holder would be ', an action-adventure retelling of the Peter Jackson film trilogy from Aragorn's perspective, on non-Microsoft video game platforms, with the Wii and PlayStation 3 versions taking advantage of motion controls to simulate sword, shield and bow combat.
The 2010s saw the release of three darker and more violent Middle-Earth video games that were rated Mature by the ESRB. The first of such games was ', an action role-playing game that takes place in Northern Middle-earth. It was developed by Snowblind Studios and released on 1 November 2011. Then Monolith Productions developed a two-game, non-canon Middle-Earth: Shadow spin-off series, set between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The main protagonist of these two action RPGs is a Ranger named Talion who bonds with the Elf spirit Celebrimbor, gaining wraith-like powers to deal with adversaries. The first game, ' was released in 2014, with its sequel, ', released in 2017.
In that same decade, Warner Bros. also released Lego The Lord of the Rings and Lego The Hobbit, two family-friendly Lego video game adaptations of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy, The Hobbit and .

Unofficial games

Aside from officially licensed games, unofficial games have also been made, such as Shadowfax 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 longest-lasting unlicensed games are Angband, a roguelike based loosely on The Silmarillion; Elendor, a MUSH based on Tolkien in general; and two MUDs based on The Lord of the Rings: MUME and The Two Towers.
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, was self-published in 2002.
Tolkien-inspired mods and custom maps have been made for many games, such as Heroes of Might and Magic, Warcraft III, Neverwinter Nights, ', ', Warlords 3, ', Mount & Blade, ', and Age of Wonders. The game Minecraft has been used extensively as a tool to recreate Middle-earth, most notably the servers MCME and Ardacraft. Furthermore, the Middle-Earth DEM Project released a playable dataset compiled for the Outerra 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.
Delta 4 released the two parody games The Boggit and Bored of the Rings.

List of video games

Official games based on the novels

TitleYearPublisherDeveloperPlatforms
The Hobbit
1982Melbourne House
Tansoft
Addison-Wesley
Beau-Jolly 		Beam SoftwareAmstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC, Dragon 32, Oric-1, Oric Atmos, MSX, Apple II, IBM PC
'
1983 Parker BrothersParker BrothersAtari 2600, Atari Home Computer
'
1985Melbourne House
Addison-Wesley
Guild Publishing
Beau-Jolly 		Beam SoftwareZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC, Dragon 32, Apple II, IBM PC, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW
The Shadows of Mordor
1987Melbourne House
Addison-Wesley
Beau-Jolly 		Beam SoftwareAmstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Apple II, IBM PC
War in Middle-earth1988Melbourne HouseMelbourne HouseC64, Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, IBM PC
The Crack of Doom1989Addison-WesleyBeam SoftwareCommodore 64, IBM PC
The Lord of the Rings: Volume 11990Interplay,
Electronic Arts		Interplay, Chaos Studios Amiga, IBM PC
'1992InterplayInterplayIBM PC
Riders of Rohan1991Konami, MirrorsoftBeam Software, PapyrusIBM PC
The Lord of the Rings Volume 1 1994InterplayInterplaySuper NES

TitleYearPublisherDeveloperPlatforms
'2002Vivendi Universal GamesSurreal SoftwareWindows, PlayStation 2
'2002Vivendi Universal GamesThe Whole ExperienceXbox
'2002Vivendi Universal GamesPocket StudiosGame Boy Advance
'2003SierraLiquid EntertainmentWindows
The Hobbit2003SierraMidway AustinWindows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube
The Hobbit2003SierraSaffireGame Boy Advance
'
Expansion packs:
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  • ',
  • ',
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2007-2019Turbine, Inc., Midway, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment,
Standing Stone Games 		Turbine, Inc. 2007–2016,
Daybreak Game Company since 2016		Windows, macOS
'2018Asmodee DigitalFantasy Flight InteractiveWindows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS
2021Daedalic EntertainmentDaedalic EntertainmentWindows, TBA

Official games based on the movies and TV series

TitleYearPublisherDeveloperPlatforms
'2002Electronic ArtsStormfront Studios
Hypnos Entertainment 		PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube
'2002Electronic ArtsGriptonite GamesGame Boy Advance
'2003Electronic Arts
Aspyr 		Electronic Arts,Hypnos Entertainment
Beenox 		Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, Mac OS X
'2003Electronic ArtsGriptonite GamesGame Boy Advance
'2004Electronic ArtsEA Redwood ShoresPlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube
'2004Electronic ArtsGriptonite GamesGame Boy Advance
'2004Electronic ArtsEA Los AngelesWindows
The Lord of the Rings: Warrior of Middle-Earth2004HasbroTiger ElectronicsTiger Electronics
'2005Electronic ArtsAmazePlayStation Portable
'
2006Electronic ArtsEA Los AngelesWindows, Xbox 360
'2009Electronic ArtsPandemic StudiosXbox 360, PlayStation 3, Windows, Nintendo DS
'2010Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentHeadstrong Games TT FusionWii, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3
'2011Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentSnowblind StudiosPlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360
Guardians of Middle-earth2012Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentMonolith ProductionsPlayStation 3, Windows, Xbox 360
Lego The Lord of the Rings2012Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentTraveller's TalesWindows, Mac OS, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360
Lego The Hobbit2014Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentTraveller's TalesWii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, Windows, Mac OS
'2014Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentMonolith ProductionsXbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows, macOS, Linux
'2017Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentMonolith ProductionsXbox One, PlayStation 4, Windows
Untitled open world video gameTBAWarner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentMonolith ProductionsWindows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, TBA
The Lord of the Rings untitled MMORPGTBAAthlon GamesAthlon Games, Amazon Game StudiosWindows, TBA

  • Browser and flash games:
TitleYearPublisherDeveloperPlatforms
'2013Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentKabamFacebook
'2013Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentGoogleGoogle
'2013Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentGoogleGoogle

TitleYearPublisherDeveloperPlatforms
The Lord of the Rings: Middle-earth Defense2010Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentGlu MobileApple iOS
The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth2012Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentKabamAndroid, Apple iOS
The Lord of the Rings: Legends of Middle-earth2014Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentKabamAndroid, Apple iOS
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies - Fight for Middle-earth2014Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentWarner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentAndroid, Apple iOS
'2017Warner Bros. Interactive EntertainmentMonolith ProductionsAndroid, Apple iOS

Parodies