Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth preview – a tested formula and an intriguing premise
EA and Lord of the Rings have an exciting history when it comes to video games, and Capital Games is now trying to continue this successful relationship with Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth. The Sacramento-based studio has found a very successful formula for mobile games with cool battles and character collection with Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes and extends this format to Tolkien’s fantasy universe – the similarity in names is not coincidental.
Those who’ve played Galaxy of Heroes will be familiar with Heroes of Middle-earth’s gameplay: You collect famous characters from the franchise, build teams, and battle enemies in countless scenarios to gain rewards with which you add characters to your collection, upgrade them, and so on. Combat is stamina-based and has a bit of complexity to offer for those who seek it, as the variety of characters, abilities, and effects can lead to fun and powerful combinations. For those with less interest in the nuts and bolts of battle, you can simply speed things up and use the auto-combat feature to watch your party do the work for you. That, of course, makes the title a lot easier to play on the go as well, allowing you to focus on other stuff if you have to.
This comes with the usual care Capital Games puts into the visuals – for a mobile game, this title looks pretty good, even on my ancient Galaxy S7. It includes slick special attack and team attack animations that are fun to look at, and the character design stands on its own feet while still retaining a familiarity with Peter Jackson’s movies – it’s something you just can’t escape with this series, despite the game explicitly being based on the books. Any Aragorn that doesn’t resemble Viggo Mortensen just looks a bit wrong, you know?
Speaking of the books: Capital Games has obtained the rights to use Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books as well as their appendices – plus, the team is allowed to make up semi-canonical what-if scenarios inside those stories, which is the most intriguing part of all this.
The premise of Heroes of Middle-earth is that you find a strange ring of power, which allows you to travel to different timelines and points in the official story. The game’s antagonist, a mysterious and obviously evil entity with a similar power, is trying to screw up Tolkien’s version of events by interfering with them, which leads to alternative timelines you need to fix.
EA / Capital Games
How often have there been fan discussions about what would happen if Galadriel had taken the Ring from Frodo when the fellowship stayed overnight in Lothlorien? How would things have changed if Gandalf had succumbed to the Ring’s temptation right at the beginning of the story? Well, Capital Games is allowed to answer these intriguing questions in the game’s campaigns and is working with Middle-earth Enterprises on those what-if scenarios – and if that’s not a cool premise for any fan of Tolkien’s works, I don’t know what is.
This, the developers say, also means that you’ll be able to collect and use characters from those scenarios, so you’ll eventually be able to fight with a powered-up Galadriel. You could create an all-star team of Aragorns as well, putting Strider, the King of Gondor, and other versions into one squad, once they are available. Just like in the Star Wars game, the baddies are available to play as well. In addition, Capital Games can make up its own figures, which will be necessary to explore places and cultures like the Haradrim from the south, about which less is known from the books.
Capital Games has been supporting Galaxy of Heroes for years with additional content and plans for Heroes of Middle-earth are similar. The philosophy is that all characters will be attainable for everyone – it just might take a while and, naturally, you can boost your progress by investing money. You’ll get some characters as campaign rewards, others during events, and so on. The raid system from the Star Wars title is back as well, with the Mines of Moria being your first destination – we can guess which creature the boss of that one will be, eh?
Lord of the Rings: Heroes of Middle-earth is now available for free on Android and iOS, and as my old Galaxy S7 proves can be played on a broad variety of systems. If you liked Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes or simply love the premise of exploring cool what-if scenarios in Tolkien’s world, you should simply try it out and see for yourself.
