Lord of the Rings: War in the North

Snowblind Studios and Warner Bros Interactive bring you Lord of the Rings: War in the North, a role-playing action game set in the Legendary Lord of the Rings universe.

Usually Lord of the Rings games are based directly off the popular films, or simply around the generally stories and characters from within. War in the North takes a different approach though, providing a look into the battle for middle earth from a different perspective than the Fellowships quest and that precious little gold ring that centred the story we know and love so.

The Lord of the Rings universe is no stranger to the RPG genre, but War in the North provides intense combat and action that other titles simply haven’t been able to deliver. Primarily focusing the game on 3-Player cooperative rather than solo questing, War in the North is an RPG on a scale with the top contenders of the genre. There’s no word on Splitscreen play yet, so it’s expected to be restricted to online play between you and your friends.

But it’s not all about the combat. No, Snowblind understand that brutal action is still nothing without a solid story to go along with it, and what RPG would be complete with a highly intimate yet epic storyline and character progression system? Certainly not this one, as Snowblind promise War in the North to feature customisable and upgradable skills and characters complete with a conversation and dialogue system likened to Mass Effect. That’s no small order.

The game looks as familiar as one could expect given the strong representations of the Lord of the Rings universe, but Snowblind really have a lot of leverage with telling their story and the unexplored Middle Earth settings we will see in the final product. While staying true to the source, the developer is really able to stretch its creative wings in terms of visualisation of the unseen territory War in the North will take players.

War in the North is an Action RPG, but it sacrifices none of either to please the other. With the aforementioned character progression and role playing elements, the title still features intense combat that surpasses anything else seen in Lord of the Rings games, and even contenders of the Action-Adventure genre, which generally outweigh RPG titles in that aspect.

The game is really shaping up to be something special but the RPG market is full strong competition, and it remains to be seen whether the Lord of the Rings brand is going to be able to stand tall with the likes of Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

War in the North will drop on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC and has an expected release date of 2011.