Where have all the Lord of the Rings games gone?
All I want to do is be in Middle Earth right now, so where are all the games?
I don’t know about you, but every social media account I have has been overflowing with Lord of the Rings content for the past few weeks. Perhaps I’ve just done a really great job of cultivating the algorithm recently, or perhaps my phone knows I’ve started reading the books and is serving me up as much Lord of the Rings as I can muster. It’s likely a bit of both, mixed with the extended edition films being back in theaters for this weekend and last.
Last weekend, my 71 year old father and I got tickets to all three movies – Fellowship on Friday, Two Towers on Saturday, and Return of the King on Sunday. Now if you follow closely with Rogue or me, you might know that I have a child, which means that in order to do this and not be a bad person, I had to help coordinate childcare and a trip up from my mother-in-law to make this happen. And you know what? It was so worth it. It made for a great weekend watching these films that have meant so much to me and my dad – that we used to watch together when one of us was sick on the weekend – on the big screen. For those of us fortunate enough to still have our parents, you never know how many of those things you have left.
But one thing majorly disappointed me with the weekend. When I got home Friday night and started listening to my Fellowship of the Ring audio book, and going into full Lord of the Rings overdrive, I went to find and download some games in the universe. But the Shadow games feel old and sluggish on modern consoles, making them awkward to control. And the more modern games like Return to Moria and Tales of the Shire are more niche genre games with a nice Lord of the Rings coat. I want to immerse myself in that world, and, outside of the very old Lord of the Rings Online, I find my options lacking.
Which leads me to my wider point: what the hell?