When Warhorse via X recently unofficially announced that it was currently working on a long-rumored Middle-earth RPG that it had previously denied involvement in, it was music to the ears of many fans of both studios' past work. The Lord of the Rings the same There is little doubt about it Kingdom Come: Redemption The team, which is also passionate LotR Fans, Middle-Earth can pull off the definitive open-world RPG it's always deserved, and make the idea of playing it alone ultimately feel like the stuff dreams are made of. However, apart from the quality Lord of the Rings As expected of the RPG, it's also the most grounded video game franchise has seen, if the studio's previous work is any indication.
Of course, by “ground,” I don't mean it'll be magic-free or abandon the kind of cinematic spectacle the franchise's books and movies are known for. On the one hand, calling something “grounded” implies realism, but if true of a historical game series Kingdom Come: Redemption And like an imaginary franchise The Lord of the RingsThis realism is ultimately defined by its space. For one, realism is, in fact, rooted in real world history. But for another, realism is defined by a fictional world of one's own creation.
Hogwarts Legacy is the definitive blueprint for an open-world Lord of the Rings RPG
Hogwarts Legacy showed how beloved fantasy worlds can become RPG homes, and Middle-earth might be the best possible test of that idea.
The Warhorse's desire for authenticity will undoubtedly drive its take on Middle-earth
With the Middle-earth RPG apparently in pre-production at the time of writing, Warhorse has not revealed any details about it other than its setting and genre. As such, the only current frame of reference we have for what the game could be is Studio Kingdom Come: Redemption series. But while it's easy to look at each RPG's open-world design, combat, and even story as an example of what a Middle-earth RPG can be, considering the warhorse priorities behind those things might be a more telling sign of this kind. Lord of the Rings Game we will get.
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What I'm really getting at is how important authenticity is to this developer, perhaps even more than gameplay gimmicks and impressive visuals. If there is one thing that sets it apart Kingdom Come: Redemption From other RPGs in the series, this is a philosophy that centers around ensuring that what players see and experience on screen is the reality it aims for. And in the case of those games, it's medieval Bohemia.
Warhorse has long been clear with its goals Kingdom Come: Redemption Always wanted to give players a chance to experience medieval history in a way that makes them feel like they're legitimately there, not because everything looks real, but because everything feels real. From the way people interact with each other and the way cities are designed to feel when swinging a sword, or from the fact that not everyone alive in that period knew how to read, Warhorse's intention was always to ground players in a world that, despite bending here and there against modern gaming expectations, asked them to complete it on their own terms.
Ultimately, it accomplished this with painstaking research, involving historians in the development process of both games to ensure that there were some notable differences between the real history and the virtual representation. In the end, players were given two open-world games that actually achieved something with only limited numbers to manage. When they came to the entrance Kingdom Come: Redemption series, players were entering a living, breathing world not far removed from their own, while most games in the genre tend to offer something closer to an escape from reality rather than a deep dive into it.
If there is one thing that sets it apart Kingdom Come: Redemption From other RPGs in the series, this is a philosophy that centers around ensuring that what players see and experience on screen is the reality it aims for.
That approach doesn't always mean that everything will be 100% accurate in a Warhorse game, however, it's unlikely. These are, at the end of the day, video games, and video games still need to be fun. And since reality does not always equate to fun, embellishment and exaggeration must be offered as compensation. Still, it proves the studio's desire to root its work in a degree of authenticity that most modern RPGs — and most games, for that matter — lack. That, in essence, could make the upcoming Middle-earth RPG the most grounded entry in the franchise.
Middle-earth deserves Warhorse's prowess for authenticity
History and fantasy are two very different things, with the former having almost zero flexible boundaries and the latter offering an enormous amount of freedom to those willing to create within its space. That changes, however, when a world like Tolkien's Middle-earth, which comes with its own internal history, languages, cultures, maps and genealogies, enters the picture. It's one thing to create a fantasy world that players have never heard of, but it's an entirely different thing to adapt a fantasy world that countless people are not only already familiar with but also incredibly knowledgeable about.
And yet, after seeing what it was able to accomplish Kingdom Come: Redemption And it's reasonable to expect that Middle-earth, a recreation of medieval Bohemia, will be treated similarly. The same care and attention to detail that went into making sure the players were getting the right representation KCDThe real world setting and time period will likely be placed in Tolkien's world as well. Where else? Lord of the Rings While games have either simply adapted the films or closely followed Tolkien's lore, Warhorse's open-world RPG may be the first game to make Middle-earth actually feel like Middle-earth.
And there's a sense that it might be the most grounded Lord of the Rings Game still. The more accuracy Warhorse aims for when reconstructing Middle-earth, the more believable the world will be. On its own, Tolkien's world already feels like something that could actually exist in another reality, so Warhorse doesn't need to go outside those boundaries to prove anything. Instead, resting well within them is probably the best program here, and this is likely to be taken by the developer. There is good news for that Lord of the Rings Fans like me.
- Created by
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JRR Tolkien
- where to look
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HBO Max
- movie(s)
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The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
