Although there was a solo campaign, Conquest was designed with multiplayer in mind. Instead of Middle-Earth’s mightiest heroes, this game had you reliving epic clashes through the eyes of men, elves, and orcs, with iconic characters occasionally gracing the battlefield. The Lord of the Rings: Conquest was another attempt by EA to cross the border into new genres.

While both had their high points, Battle for Middle Earth was better received by critics, followed up by a sequel and its superb expansion, Rise of the Witch King. It also stood on the toes of Sierra’s own game set in Tolkien’s fantasy world, War of the Ring. Moving into the realms of real-time strategy, this served as EA’s answer to popular RTS hits such as Age of Empires and Warcraft. Once EA had obtained The Lord of the Rings book licence, The Battle for Middle-Earth soon followed. In a hole in the ground, there lived a licencing deal This turn-based RPG weaved in and out of the movies’ main events and showed EA’s commitment to providing genre-hopping experiences under one licence (to rule them all).

Something that the company would have trouble repeating with their Star Wars related ventures.Īfter the movie tie-ins, EA threw somewhat of a curveball with The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. Collectively selling over six million copies worldwide, EA had a firm grasp on the Tolkien film licence. A second instalment in the same vein, The Return of the King, covered the action-packed finale of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Receiving a multi-platform release in October 2002, The Two Towers featured hack and slash battles from those first films. EA’s first movie tie-in for The Two Towers represented two-thirds of Peter Jackson’s trilogy, with most action sequences linking to The Two Towers. The Lord of The Rings movie licence was safely in the hands of Electronic Arts by the time The Fellowship of the Ring hit theatres.

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