Lord of the Rings: War in the North Gamescom 2011 Preview

War in the North is the the new action role-playing Lord of the Rings game, brought to you by Snowblind Studios, which runs parallel to the film trilogy and J.R.R. Tolkien's book. It tells the untold tale of the battles held in the Northern Hemisphere of Middle-Earth in the fight against Sauron.

You have to fight the forces of evil and defend the Northern cities. Your rival is Agandaûr, one of Sauron's cruelest allies and you are part of a fellowship sent to try defeat him. You have a choice to be either a female Elf called Andriel, a male Dwarf called Farin, or a human called Eradan. Andriel's primary attack and defense is magic, and she uses her sword and/or staff for close range attack. Farin specialises in melee and close range attack, but for long range he has a crossbow. Eradan is a human ranger and is a master of skills such as archery and stealth. Although none of the characters from the original storyline are playable, some of them do make appearances throughout the game.

There will always be three characters, so whether you are playing online or playing with the AI, you will always have three team members. Co-operation is key, and you have to take into consideration each character's skills and what scenarios are best fitted to them. For example, the Dwarf could stay at the front, being the tank for the team, whilst the Human can stay at the back and use his long range weaponry, and the Elf can heal them both. Using an example from the gameplay shown to us, there were two big crossbows fixed to the ground, whilst two of the characters are attacking with them, the third player has to defend his team mates from the Orcs that slip through their line of fire. You can either use the split screen (a feature for the consoles) or play online. If someone drops out, then that person will be replaced by an AI.

You have actual criteria to fulfil rather than just "go in and kill some bad guys", so instead it's basically "go and do this whilst fighting off hordes of enemies". The objective we were shown in the gameplay demonstrated was that you had to protect a door from Trolls whilst there was an onslaught of Orcs to try and divert your attention. The fellowship had to then divide themselves up to do certain things like attack the Trolls, or defend the others from the Orcs.

There are critical finishers when attacking foes. When they aren't quite dead, but in a vulnerable position, you can finish them off in a more brutal way. This really brings out the violenceof the game and they could bring it out more if they play on this when the game is released.

LotR: War in the North is set across a range of terrain from the cold and mountainous landscape of Mount Gundabad, to the dark, mysterious and ancient forest of Mirkwood. This could also be a potential strongpoint for the game because if they captivate the environment it would make the player really feel like their in the moment. In the gameplay we witnessed, it seemed to do this well, but whether or not the rest of the game follows the same path of quality only time will tell.

LotR: War in the North is being branded as a very hardcore RPG with a mature target audience to match that. The developers estimate that it will provide the most experienced player around twenty hours to play through - without including the side stories and quests so a lot of content on offer.

LotR: War in the North is scheduled for release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 during November 2011.