The year was 2004 when I first witnessed the majesty of "The Lord of the Rings" series. It was quite the event for a small boy raised in the small rural town of Kangal – an hour away from central Turkey's Sivas – looking to escape the freezing winter air and wolves howling on the outskirts of the settlement, to sit down with his best friend to watch a Turkish dubbed copy of "The Fellowship of the Ring," and witness the artistry of Peter Jackson's filmmaking and the majesty of J.R.R. Tolkien's world on a CRT television. We watched that film religiously – as it was the only DVD we had – until my friend's father angrily broke the CD in half one day, and I did not get a chance to watch the rest of the trilogy for around two years until my family moved back to Istanbul. By that time I was sincerely hooked on the "Lord of the Rings" fandom and, as a fan of video games, I was on the lookout for any title related to Tolkien's iconic works. In walked The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth.
For someone who quite enjoyed – or would come to enjoy – the likes of Command & Conquer: Generals and Age of Empires, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth and its sequel The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II – let's call them collectively "BFME" for brevity's sake – were a different taste of the real-time strategy (RTS) genre and had grabbed my jubilant enthusiasm in totally new and unique ways that I had not experienced before in video games.
I have to admit that, although they sounded interesting and intriguing on paper, I had a relatively unhappy marriage with the RTS genre. As more of a first-person – and third-person – shooter type gamer, I found that I had a very specific taste in strategy and it all came down to the setting, world and atmosphere of the games.
Strategy games that were more grounded in terms of their setting and tone appealed to me much more. More Medieval II: Total War, less StarCraft, more Age of Empires II, less Warcraft, more Rise of Nations, less Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. Just a side note on RTS games that I like to play: World in Conflict was – and still is – one underappreciated gem in my eyes.
So, when I found BFME, it was a revelation in both gameplay and world atmosphere.
As a fan of the trilogy of films and books, seeing the locations of Middle-earth come to life on my screen and being able to control my beloved Hobbits and Elves and Wizards, was nothing short of amazing.
Finding one's way through the darkness in the mines of Moria and fighting the Balrog of Morgoth; reaching Amon Hen and taking on the orcs and Lurtz, then witnessing the spectacle of the siege of Helm's Deep and the Battle of the Hornburg; seeing the conquest of Isengard by the Ents; standing against all odds at Minas Tirith and Shelob's lair; relishing triumph at the Pelennor Fields and the Black Gate; reliving so many iconic moments and scenes engraved in fans' memories, plus wielding the ability to control those heroes was an unbelievable blessing. Added to all that, the opportunity to undertake an evil campaign afterward, dictating the efforts of Sauron in beating the Elves and Dwarves of the northern realms, was the cherry on top.
Now, in terms of RTS game standards, BFME was ... let's say lacking, content-wise. When compared to the behemoths of the genre, the likes of "Age of Empires" and "Command & Conquer," it was underwhelming in the content department, especially the first game.
For someone attuned to the intricate economy systems, resource management and unit variety of those games, BFME would feel like an adequate, run-of-the-mill strategy game at best. The first one didn't even give players the freedom to build structures anywhere they wished on the map, restricted instead to predefined plots.
The only resource of the game was ... well, "resources," which are produced inexhaustibly in dedicated buildings. "Age of Empires" would laugh at the thought of a single, undetermined, inexhaustible resource producing food, wood, gold and stone.
It employs a basic combat system: Cavalry beats archers, pikemen beat cavalry, swordsmen beat pikemen and archers beat swordsmen, with some other unique units like Ents, Mumakil and Trolls also getting beaten by fire. Units gain experience and level up the longer they are on the battlefield engaging the enemy, becoming hardier and more dangerous. Characters like Aragorn, Saruman, Gandalf, Merry and Pippin, Legolas and Gimli, the Nazgul, the Witch-King, represent "hero units" with multiple elaborate abilities that can be purchased back if killed.
The one unique feature of the combat system is the special abilities purchased with points gathered from the destruction of units. These range from powers that reveal an area to those that heal one's units – and it was a cardinal sin not to purchase those as early as possible – those that summon temporary units like Eagles and even Balrog, plus in the sequel those that dealt damage to buildings, like earthquake.
The second game was much better in terms of content, especially since you could build anywhere on the map and it offered new factions and units. It was also a more refined experience – within the limitations and standards of the time – making it more enjoyable to battle it out in Helm's Deep with one player versus four.
That said, it was nothing special. It was not great, not terrible. It was bland by most accounts. That's where the games' strengths kicked in and made one forget all its deficiencies, and made these games such gems, such classics to behold.
The soundtrack ... If you have ever seen "The Lord of the Rings," even for a fleeting moment, even if you didn't like it a bit, you cannot deny the majesty of its soundtrack. Howard Shore's orchestral epic still stands as one of the greatest musical achievements in the world of cinema. So, it is easy to understand why BFME blows every video game out of the water in terms of music, thanks to its ability to employ Shore's masterpiece. In addition to that, original music in the likeness of Shore's score was recorded for the game, and they blend together surprisingly well. The music is such an important part of these fifteen-year-old games that I still get the urge to play them solely to listen to the soundtrack.
With the music, the top-notch sound design and mixing, and voice-acting complete the aural cake. The incredible resources that are "The Lord of the Rings" films come into play here as well, as they were able to use lines and recordings directly from the films, so the excellent voices of Middle-earth were retained, with Hugo Weaving, who plays Elrond in the films, even reprising his role and becoming the lead voice-over talent in the second game. These are the elements that take a mediocre game from the stages of adequacy to memorable greatness. One can never forget the talks of "strange folk abroad" at the gates of Bree, which can be heard time and again in the game.
So, if it is such a beautiful game, where can you buy it? On Steam? On Origin? On Epic Store? Well, nowhere. Yes, this iconic game from the times when EA stayed somewhat true to the "Arts" part of its name, cannot be "bought" anywhere.
The official game servers for the title were permanently closed on Dec. 31, 2010, and it has been impossible to purchase the game for over a decade now. Why is that? "The Lord of the Rings" video game licenses, held by EA up until that point, expired, and the rights went to Warner Bros., specifically their game studio. So, it had to come to be that the BFME games, along with "The Lord of the Rings: Conquest" – a Third-Person action game – were now in licensing limbo. EA could not sell them because they did not hold the rights to "The Lord of the Rings" anymore, and Warner Bros. could not sell them because they did not hold the rights to "The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth." The only options were for EA to strike a deal with Warner Bros. that would allow it to sell its existing games, or for Warner Bros. to buy the rights to the existing games and sell them itself, both of which were highly unlikely and thus never materialized.
However, not all was doom and gloom. There was a group who continued to fight tooth-and-nail, armed with shards of Narsil, determined to win the battle for Middle-earth: A fellowship of mods.
Yes, BFME was left to rot by the big studios with the big bucks, but modders were not so easily discouraged. An unbelievably passionate community had formed around this game, one that is shockingly still continuing to support it, with several notable mods providing regular updates to the joy of so many fans.
There is even a group of passionate modders who have taken matters into their own hands, grabbing Frodo's arm before he plunges down into the Mount Doom of licenses as they have been working for several years now on a project of great scale, namely "The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth: Reforged" – yes, the name is even more of a mouthful this time – a "remastered" version of BFME, developed using the Unreal Engine.
It is a tale of hope and inspiration, seeing the journey of BFME. It shows the power of community, and what a bunch of determined fans unfazed by the scale of the task at hand can accomplish – for free, even. After nearly 16 years – 18 from the first game – BFME is still alive even though it was left for dead. The official game servers may be taken down, but the unofficial servers are buzzing, and the modding scene is stronger than ever.
What does that tell us about gamers? That they are a passionate bunch. Just take a look at the modding page of "Cyberpunk 2077" and you can see how modders are doing the jobs of developers, for fun, to complete and perfect what they consider artwork.
It shows us starkly what game studios have been lacking for so long now: Passion.
In my last piece, I had advocated for EA to change its name from Electronic Arts to Embarrassing Arts because it lacked passion. I added Truly for good measure – Truly Embarrassing Arts. I will add another interpretation to the acronym. This time around let's call it Truly Electric Arts, because "The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth" was truly electric, and still is, while big game developers continue to embarrass themselves.
Let's leave it at that and catch up on another journey through the realms of video games in our next TEA session.
