5 Things We Want To See In Warhorse’s LOTR RPG (And 1 We Really Don’t)

The Lord of the Rings has been a beloved piece of pop culture for over seventy years, taking Tolkien’s charming creations in The Hobbit and expanding the scope to be a true epic. The trilogy has been adapted several times in the years since, especially in the gaming space. The latest effort, however, may be the most exciting we’ve seen in a while.

Warhorse Studios, the developers behind the critically acclaimed Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, are taking their immersive approach to the RPG genre to Middle-earth. Although details are scarce at the time of writing, there are plenty of potential directions the game could take. It could explore underrepresented settings, introduce new characters, and play with the lore in exciting ways. Here are five things we’re hoping to see from Warhorse’s LOTR game – and one we hope they avoid.

We Want To See A Lot Of Middle-earth

Part of the appeal of doing any game set within the creations of J.R.R Tolkien is the chance to get a new look at the fantastical setting. The franchise has plenty of exciting locations, ranging from well-seen locations to more unique locales rarely seen in other media. A Warhorse LOTR game seems like an ideal way to explore both, with the developer’s habit of creating fully fleshed-out landscapes for players to explore, making for an ideal adventure.

While the developer hopefully doesn’t just play the hits and revisit settings we’ve already seen a hundred times in games, getting the chance to explore them with the in-depth sense of immersion found in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a big part of what makes this game so exciting as a possibility. Hopefully, we’ll get a nice blend of both, appealing to fan expectations while leaving room for the team at Warhorse to surprise us.

We Should Get A Specific Place In The Timeline

One of the interesting things about Warhorse taking on the LOTR property is looking ahead to how they’ll put their own stamp on the world. Their previous games have shown how thoroughly the developer throws itself into immersive storytelling, so their approach will likely have a lot to do with the time and setting of the story. The LOTR continuity is fairly set in stone, but with plenty of space for expansion in certain settings.

Games like Shadow of Mordor have proven how easily game developers can expand the lore in ways that do feel consistent with the worldbuilding of Tolkien, so seeing them do something similar could be exciting. Whether or not they want to expand on an older era similar to Prime Video’s Rings of Power, explore the main events of the LOTR trilogy from a new perspective, or even try to build off of Tolkien’s ultimately abandoned plans for future stories, Warhorse firmly picking an era to play in will be crucial to how the game works. 

We Need The Combat To Not Become Overwhelming

Another element of the LOTR saga that might prove to be a double-edged sword for Warhorse is the sheer scope of it when it comes to armies and people. It lends the saga a much grander scale, with hordes of arcs and humans coming to blows in several high-profile battles. However, fights of that magnitude could risk becoming either painfully overwhelming or dully straightforward. The combat in Kingdom Come was great because it knew how to keep the player’s focus on the task at hand.

The game will need to keep the action grounded without letting it become too rote. Too much combat could even begin to pull the player out of the immersive narrative RPG. We’ve gotten plenty of LOTR games where you get to heroically slay hundreds of enemies. A more deliberate and tense take on combat, reflecting the way Kingdom Come: Deliverance II used battles, is a must for Warhorse’s LOTR game.

We Can Live Out Our LOTR Life

One of the things that made Kingdom Come: Deliverance II stand out so thoroughly was the way it managed to feel like a completely immersive RPG where your actions controlled your path, all while telling a tightly constructed central narrative. It’s a hard balance to muster, but something Warhorse has proven to know how to do. Seeing them repeat that magic trick is a big part of the appeal of Warhorse taking on the LOTR property. Hopefully, whatever game they make will have that same strong narrative focus, telling a unique story within the setting.

However, the best version of a Warhorse LOTR game would also understand that a big part of the fun is exploring the setting and living out your life within it. It’s a tricky approach, leaving room open for players to carve out their own place in Middle-earth while leaving room for the developers to tell the story they want to tell. Their recent hits suggest this approach has promise, but it’s still a tall order that we really hope to see the team knock out.

We’d Love To Explore Characters We Haven’t Seen Before

There will inevitably be some familiar faces in the Warhorse Lord of the Rings games. The nature of IP adaptation, coupled with the in-universe explanation of long-living characters like the Elves and the Wizards, makes it easy for famous characters to pop up for a mission or a story beat. However, being too beholden to what we know or have already seen could leave this fame feeling like it’s treading well-worn ground. Hopefully, this Warhorse LOTR game has the ability to not just explore new settings but also play with new characters.

This could give Warhorse far more creative freedom, especially if they can find ways to thread their own narrative needles through the established lore and canon. New characters within the setting or obscure pulls from the books that don’t often appear in outside media would be ideal here, especially if they’re used to flesh out lingering threads from the original story – like the fate of the Blue Wizards – that could feel appropriately epic for the franchise and yet still fully character-driven.

We Don’t Need To Be Part Of The Fellowship

The Fellowship are a great bunch of characters, but we’ve already played as almost every single member of them in various games over the years. Their plot has been told quite well in adaptations, with little in the way of open room for expansion or invention without messing with the continuity. We don’t need to play as any of them, because it would just feel like playing the hits instead of doing something original. If the game wants to be set during the War of the Ring, then playing out the narrative with the Fellowship’s quest could be a way to eventually include cameos or team-ups with those characters – but even that has already been done.

When it comes to the Warhorse LOTR game, the hope is that they’re able to create the fully realized world and fleshed-out narrative of their previous games. Avoiding the most famous characters in the story might be key to that, giving players room to live through their character without being largely defined by canon. We really hope that Warhorse’s LOTR game doesn’t just repeat past game directions and instead leans into the thrill of being a fully immersive LOTR RPG experience.