

There's a smart interplay between unit types, requiring players to find a good balance of melee units, ranged archers, and cavalry. Units are grouped into battalions, which significantly bumps up the scale of battles. Battle for Middle Earth 2 opens up gameplay from the first by letting players place building anywhere, instead of having set locations. The game obviously takes liberties, but much of the story is based on info Tolkien wrote himself or was detailed in his appendices. Of course, there's also an evil campaign to play through on the opposite side. The original focuses on the war in the north of Middle Earth, following the elf Glorfindel and the dwarf Gloin. While the first Battle for Middle Earth set the stage, Battle for Middle Earth 2 really shined as one of the most ambitious Lord of the Rings games out there. Luckily fans have kept the games alive through patches, updates, and fixes, but, sadly, anyone wanting to boot up the games in 2021 needs to go through a series of fixes to even play. Both Battle for Middle Earth games simply won't start up past the splash screen. A bigger problem, however, is that even when players obtain a copy of the game it doesn't play properly on Windows 10. There's no good, legal, way to obtain the Battle for Middle Earth games, without paying nearly $100 on eBay or some other shopping site.

The Battle For Middle Earth Takes Serious Work to Play in 2020, and That's a Shame It's proof that classic Lord of the Rings games need some kind of update, or even a simple re-release through digital stores like Steam. It's incredibly disappointing, then, that The Battle for Middle Earth games are a headache to try and play in this day and age.

Related: Lord Of The Rings: Gollum Screenshots Reveal REALLY Creepy Star These real-time strategy classics did a phenomenal job at adapting Middle Earth, on top of having some of the best strategy gameplay found in the genre. In this category is The Battle for Middle Earth and its sequel, The Battle for Middle Earth 2.

Sadly, many Lord of the Rings games are nearly impossible to find these days and haven't seen any kind of update or re-release. From a grid-based tactical game to a LEGO adaption, Lord of the Rings has seen more video games than most licensed franchises, Star Wars notwithstanding. The Lord of the Rings franchise has an interesting history with video games, as it's experimented with a wealth of different genres over the years.
