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The Lord of the Rings: War in the North

 
Daily Deal - Lord of the Rings: War in the North, 75% OffMay 24, 2016 - AnnouncementToday's Deal: Save 75% on Lord of the Rings: War in the North!* Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are! *Offer ends Thursday at 10AM Pacific Time Daily Deal - Lord of the Rings: War in the North, 75% OffSep 4, 2013 - AnnouncementToday's Deal: Save 75% on Lord of the Rings: War in the North!* The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is a co-op Action RPG that immerses you and your friends in a brutal new chapter in the War of the Ring. Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are! *Offer ends Friday at 10AM Pacific Time The Lord of the Rings: War in the North: The Kotaku ReviewNov 8, 2011 - Kotaku Why didn't Gandalf have his giant eagle friends drop the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom and be done with it? This is a question I've jokingly put forth to fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy over the years, endlessly amused by the (often angry) responses it generates. "The eagles' primitive brains would be overwhelmed by the evil power!" they would answer. "The poisonous gasses from the volcano would kill them if they tried," or "They were neutral in the battle and wouldn't commit to aiding any one side," the fans would offer, attempting to explain away what to many seems like a massive plot hole. The truth is Tolkien doesn't need his fans to rise to his defense; I know the answer to the question. If The Lord of the Rings were the simple tale of an evil ring and a volcano, then yes, having a bird arrange a hasty meeting between the two would make sense. This is not the story about the One Ring and Mount Doom; it's the story of a group of heroes, the bonds they form, and the sacrifices they make in order to do what's right. Without Frodo's brave sacrifice, Samwise's unwavering loyalty, Boromir's desperate struggle, Aragorn's steadfast courage – without this group of men, dwarves, elves, and hobbits demonstrating their inspiring humanity at every turn, The Lord of the Rings would be nothing more than a well-crafted, scenic but soulless journey from point A to point Doom. And that sums up The Lord of the Rings: War in the North quite nicely. A human, an elf, and a dwarf walk into a bar. They have names, of course, but after ten hours of gameplay I'm hard-pressed to remember them. I could look them up, but they'd mean even less to you than they do to me, so what's the point? The bar does have a name, however: The Prancing Pony, located in the heart of the village of Bree. It's the tavern where Frodo and friends first meet Strider, AKA Aragorn. It was this famous location and my meeting with such a prominent figure from the fiction that gave me hope that War in the North would be more than a generic hack-and-slash role-playing game based in Middle-Earth. My party of three was tasked with delaying a gathering army to the north, giving the ranger and his hobbit friends time to escape the clutches of the Black Riders. For a brief, shining moment, I was an active part of the main story. The feeling didn't last. Soon I was off on a mission to take down an evil menace never directly mentioned in The Lord of the Rings proper, a generic villain perfectly suited to my generic heroes. Though well designed and rendered, the familiar locations I passed through might as well have scenic postcards from distant friends, informing me how much they wished I was with them on a mission with more meaning. Perhaps the greatest feeling of detachment from the core story came midway through the game, when elf, dwarf, and ranger briefly stops by Rivendell, legendary home of the elves where the Fellowship is first formed. Here I encountered familiar ...Sixty Get the Axe at Warner Bros.' Lord of the Rings OperationNov 5, 2011 - Kotaku Following big releases, the quality assurance staff usually gets axed. That appears to be the case in the laying off of about 60 from Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The publisher confirmed pink slips were given, but not the number. The layoffs hit WBIE's Seattle operations, comprising the Snowblind, Monolith and Surreal studios. Snowblind developed The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, which released on Tuesday. A statement from WBIE made it sound like the layoffs were routine, which it certainly is within the industry. "As part of the continual review of our business operations and fluctuating market conditions, we have had to make reductions in our WB Games Seattle workforce," a spokesman told Kotaku. They didn't specify what types of jobs were lost. Among current projects at WBIE's Seattle division, Monolith is working on Gotham City Impostors. You can contact Owen Good, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page. Should You Buy The Lord of the Rings: War in the North? Yes.Nov 2, 2011 - Kotaku Just when we thought we'd seen all there is to see in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga, Snowblind Studios goes and writes an entirely new adventure, chronicling the goings on in the North while Sauron's eye was focused on Frodo and friends. Should you lend it your bow, or give it the axe? Michael Fahey, who is cool on Tolkien but hot on action role-playing games: When Snowblind Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced The Lord of the Rings: War in the North was in development, the action role-playing aficionado in me squealed like a little girl getting a new pony. Nothing gets me going like a good old hack-and-slash action RPG, and having developer Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and both Champions of Norrath titles for the PlayStation 2, Snowblind had established itself as the action RPG developer to beat. That doesn't mean I wasn't worried about the game. The team hadn't done anything in the genre since the forgettable Justice League Heroes back in 2006, and The Lord of the Rings series has induced more sleep in me than hours of enjoyment. I developed an idea of what I wanted The War in the North to be in my head, certain Snowblind would miss the mark. Four hours into the game and I've been pleasantly surprised. The combat is satisfyingly tight, each swing of the sword, staff, or axe feeling as if it's falling on a foe rather than floating in their general direction. Gaining experience levels and filling out each character's talent tree is satisfying without being over-complicated. The character models look much better in-game than they did in screens and trailers, and equipping new armor and items changes the look of each character, something much more important to me than it should be. The online cooperative multiplayer for up to three players has performed flawlessly so far, and while there isn't much enemy variety it's still fun to kill the ones we're given. It might not excel, but I wasn't looking for excellence; just competent, quality action RPG entertainment, and The Lord of the Rings: War in the North has given me that. Yes. Luke Plunkett, the closest thing Kotaku has to a New Zealand film director: From everything I've seen and heard, you need to be a Lord of the Rings fan to get the most out of this game. What it does as an action RPG is...tick the boxes. It's fairly ho-hum, you run around, you kill things, you occasionally kill something bigger. At this time of the year, with so many truly blockbuster games vying for your time and attention, I normally wouldn't recommend it. But I'm not normal. I'm a massive Lord of the Rings fan, and the way this game looks like it stepped right out of an unreleased fourth film, while at the same time blending into the established fiction of the universe, is really attractive to me. I'll put up with the doldrums of loot and slashing if there are Tolkien-ish dwarves and giant eagles, and hey, this game has dwarves and giant eagles. That makes it a Yes. Kirk Hami...Now Available - The Lord of the Rings: War in the NorthNov 1, 2011 - Product ReleaseThe Lord of the Rings: War in the North is now available on Steam in North and South America! Other regions will release soon, please check the game page for more details. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is a co-op Action RPG that immerses you and your friends in a brutal new chapter in the War of the Ring. Snowblind Studios is in the unique position of drawing inspiration from both the literary and film rights to world of Middle-earth, allowing players to bloody their axes on a wide range of deadly enemies and traverse both established and never-before-seen locations. The result is a journey that is both epic and intimate, familiar yet unexpected. Pre-load Lord of the Rings: War in the NorthOct 28, 2011 - AnnouncementPre-Load The Lord of the Rings: War in the North now and be ready to play when it releases! Now Available - Lord of the Rings: War in the NorthOct 25, 2011 - Product ReleaseLord of the Rings: War in the North is Now Available on Steam. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is a co-op Action RPG that immerses you and your friends in a brutal new chapter in the War of the Ring. Snowblind Studios is in the unique position of drawing inspiration from both the literary and film rights to world of Middle-earth, allowing players to bloody their axes on a wide range of deadly enemies and traverse both established and never-before-seen locations. The result is a journey that is both epic and intimate, familiar yet unexpected. An Innocent Sandwich Died to Create Weapons for The Lord of the Rings: War in the NorthMay 12, 2011 - KotakuThe Lord of the Rings: War in the North developer Snowblind Studios takes its weapon creating seriously in this behind-the-scenes video, and an innocent lunchtime treat gives its life for the greater good. This Is The Bloodiest Lord Of The Rings Game EverApr 13, 2011 - KotakuOne would assume that cutting your way through countless orcs would leave your clothes rather messy. Snowblind Studios, the developer of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North makes that happen in what looks to be the most violent game the fantasy series has ever seen. Gore spattered dwarves and elves are nothing new to players of games like Dragon Age, but Lord of the Rings games generally shy away from getting down and dirty when it comes to the wholesale slaughter of evil minions. Not so with The Lord of the Rings: War in the North. If you make it through a battle without a drop of thick black blood on your adventuring gear, you probably did something wrong. It's so gory it's likely to be the first M-rated game in the series. That Snowblind has managed this without resorting to flashing elf breasts is a fact that makes me both happy and sad at the same time. The Lord of the Rings: War in the North is coming to the PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360 sometime this year.

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