Game Review : The Lord of the Rings: War In The North Legacy Edition

The Lord Of The Rings : War In The North is the next game to get some sort of remaster and while it wasn’t a massively popular game upon release in 2011 it is fun enough to jump into in 2026.

With no memories really of the game from its original launch in 2026 it plays like a semi outdated action RPG. Its a linear game with no way to really deviate from the path here as you follow along a trail with your two companions fighting endless groups of orcs and more across parts of Middle Earth.

You will spend your entire time here button mashing and trying to block attacks from all angles and far away at once. The game is pretty unrelenting at times in difficulty here making enemies take your health down to nothing almost instantly. Thankfully as long as your AI companions can stay alive they are fantastic at reviving you or each other. Even when leveling up though while you become stronger the sheer amount of enemies thrown at you sometime will have you running laps just trying to get a hit in while you can.

Being able to switch between characters at any time does add a fresh breathe of air into the game though. The 3 control and play differently along with their skill trees and powers being different give you other ways to play the game. At the end of the day though you’ll be still collecting loot, hoping for higher power items, and walking a seemingly endless path killing the same enemies over and over.

Even with the remaster attempting to modernize some things here, the game is visually pretty ugly. Textures and the world itself are bland mixes of grey and brown mostly, characters and enemies all all slightly ugly and move in an almost robot fashion at times, and it just reeks of a lower level PS2 game which is odd given it was from a bigger name studio back then even. Cutscenes though seem to have a higher quality on them though.

Now Aspyr who did the game also made a new change here with adding the ability to do online co-op here but I was not able to test that out.

With a $20 price tag the game is worth it. Fans old and new will find enough simple fun here to warrant the price and they were smart for doing that. If this was full price I’d say avoid but for $20 its a harken back to older days and even with its issues you’ll still have some mindless fun.

Score :

3 / 5

Review code provided courtesy of Aspyr